You guys'll have to forgive my language on a terribly bad day but a whole grip of posters in this thread turned out to be some real dumbasses.
You aren't the only one having a bad day and a post like this, without a shred of anything to refute what others who disagree with you say, is pure Bullsh!t.
Here is what I had to say:
Ok, I am not a scientist (nor do I play one on television), but I have a question for those who are and may have more knowledge than me.
Did anyone see the video of the shuttle close up before it came apart? When I saw it, I thought "wait a minute, am I supposed to be seeing the stern of this craft?" After the close up, the camera zoomed out and then.... Now, We all pretty much know that the shuttle puts it's nose in the air and uses it's bottom to slow down. We have also learned that while the nose is up, the pilot does banking maneuvers to bleed off speed.
The NASA officials said that they got "off the scale low" readings from several sensors and they said that to observers those readings would look as if "the wires were cut." While I am not a scientist, I am an electronics tech and to me those indications say the wires were disconnected by some means. In this case I'm thinking burnt through.
In the particular video shot I am referring to, we should have seen either the top or the bottom of the shuttle and not the rear.
If they were making banking maneuvers and wiring harnesses were burnt through enough to make the elevators on the left side fail, wouldn't the air pressure and speed cause the shuttle to yaw enough so they were coming down sideways and wouldn't that cause enough strain on the airframe to cause it to come apart?
What say all of you?
Now, what I would love to see is the time correlation between when that video was shot and when NASA lost contact. Beyond that, maybe you can tell the rest of us "dumbasses" how it is that a determination can be made by image experts based upon images taken of a television by a Sony camcorder and those images posted here. Especially when the shot in question was originally made by a news station from an airplane. I'm not an optical engineer but I do know the visible difference between home equipment and commercial equipment. Not only that maybe you can educate the rest of us "dumbasses", well maybe just me, that the second that the images taken were in focus enough for (at least me) to make out 3 main engines on the back of that "optical illusion". I am talking about what was on Fox, not posted on this thread. Finally, maybe you can explain away the large, flat, tumbling object to the lower right of the "optical illusion". Bottom line, this is a place to exchange ideas not name call.