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Nasa confirmed today during a segment on CNN that a solid rocket booster on a previous STS flight had impacted the shuttle when it detatched...it raked the bottom of the shuttle...so much so, they assigned satillite to observe the damage via photo imaging.
Damaged..this STS mission returned safely.
Other shuttles have returned with numerous tiles missing..some shuttles have had over 50 impact strikes from debrie and cosmic..returning safely.

On STS 109...Columbia March 2002...Columbia suffered a pitch/yaw thruster failure...thruster pack is 4 ports..this occured on pre-test prior to de-orbit burn.
Columbia had its guts ripped out,,,re-wired..new monitiors..computer suite...electrical trunking.
After STS 109 in March..Nasa discovered that Columbia had cracks in flow system to engine.
Again..Columbia is torn apart for complex Tungsten weld on flow system cracks.
Columbia had been exstensively re-fit for 1-1/2 years prior to STS 109...too heavy for Space station dock..Columbia was mod to low orbit insertion ..Space hab and Micro Gravity test.
Columbia is in Com link..she is in process of cycling to compensate for wing drag..some sensor activity..then gone.
Hypothetical
Columbia suffers catastrophic system failure which silences the com link..either detonation..or
Columbia is pitched into configuration..either by computer error as per cycling on drag..or is sent into wrong configuration on s turns.
Columbia could have been rolled..inverted by computer ..the shuttles crew cabin facing the earth on descent into the heat barrier....ionization terminating com link.
something happened suddenly.
Un less an explosion took place in Columbias wing..throwing it over..the shuttle should still have been in com link as wing deteriorated...some comment from crew as wing began to fail and send Columbia into a different return configuration.
Nasa said the Columbia was like a new shuttle...having only one flight prior.
Its my opinion Columbia's computer failed in the wing drag cycling..inverting Columbia..or failing to put her into a recoverable mode during turns.
The fact she dropped out of com link is the highest information point..unless Nasa has other com link timeline they have not released to the public.
I am by now means an engineer..so the question remains..would Columbia be silenced by a wing breaking up..with not a few seconds more com ..or did something more catastrophic occur...suddenly ..unrecoverable.

The wing is not three inches thick it is more than that by a fair amount but viewing angle is critical to perception and it takes considerable experience to know what you are seeing in high speed films. I understand everyone is trying to grapple with this but the best thing would be for NASA to complete the investigation and then we will know to the best of our ability what happened. Operate from a stance of known fact not conjecture. Many complain about the press and their idiocy, and rightfully so, they live off of conjecture and not fact, if it goes against their spin they will ignore blaring facts just to keep the spin going so don't do a press job. Take the facts and question what does it show but don't speculate on the cause until you have all the facts. That is no fun I know because those blasted facts sometime take so long to get but it is the only right way to do it.

Ravenstar