Can someone explain to me if it would be possible to break into NASA's computer and cause the Columbia to re-entere at the wrong angle and burn in the atmosphere? The more explanations I hear on television, the more I wonder what are the chances that the first time NASA has lost astronauts on re-entry had to be when the israeli astronaut was on board!
One of the first things you need to learn is to ignore most of the explanations speculated on by the media. Heck, on this morning's news, the local bimbette reporter kept referring to the groundhog as "Pawnootusky" Phil.
As a native of Pennsylvania, and having lived/worked in a small town just north of Punxsutawney for over 5 years, I found the bimbette's mispronunciation absolutely hilarious.
Damned near impossible, I'd say. First, NASA has about a zillion computers, the odds of hacking into the right one, which contained the source code for the re-entry control software, would be astronomical -- presuming it's even reachable, it may well be kept off the network for security's sake, and might not even be "at" NASA at all, I'm not sure what company might have the subcontract for that work, it could be in California for all we know.
Second, the hacker would have to find the right version of the software, read it, and *understand* it well enough to know what he was looking at and how to tweak it so that it would do the desired effect, instead of just crashing, and in a way that wouldn't be immediately obvious. Then he'd have to ensure that the changes weren't noticed -- I'm sure NASA has multiple procedures to detect software alterations (not just against hacking, but to ensure that someone doesn't accidentally install the wrong version by mistake).
Finally, and here's the tough one, he'd have to find a way to get the ground-based, development version of the software to be uploaded to the Columbia and installed as its new onboard working version. That's almost certainly not something that can be instigated "remotely", it would have to be manually installed by a technician (and then tested and retested) only a result of a legitimate workorder.
It'd be a hell of a lot easier to just sneak a Stinger missile onto the landing runway...