[Chesterbelloc]

You know when I saw this on tv early today I thought it was a shot directly behind the shuttle and then camera pulled back and it was obvious from the plume that it was a side shot. It doesn't seem likely that the shuttle could be moving sideways at that speed without immediately falling apart. I mean how much stress could the side of the shuttle take?

I wonder if NASA will be able to get accurate times for when all these videos were taken and match it up with their downloaded data of what was going on?

[r9etb]

I mean how much stress could the side of the shuttle take?

For it to scatter pieces where it did, the Shuttle must have broken apart very soon after this video was taken.