[Kevin Curry]

The image is awfully stable for a shuttle travelling sideways at mach 18, don't you think? Common sense tells you that at that speed (heck, at almost any flying speed> the tiniest deviation from the designed nose-first beeline path will cause immediate catastrophic tumbling and disntegration--certainly not the several second rock-steady sideways glide posited on this thread..

[jaugust]

Perhaps only when travelling in the more dense part of the atmosphere. But up at 200 thou. ft. the thinner air might not be enough for the shuttle to react to it entirely.

[jayef]

I think you're absolutely right. There is no way Columbia goes into a flat spin at Mach 20.

[CyberAnt]

Hmmmm? You may have a great point! Not being an aero engineer type, I have no idea if their going sideways would cause them to be unstable enough to probably tumble instead of glide - but then I really don't know.