"Still, as James Oberg, a former shuttle flight controller and author who has been bombarded by Armageddon-type resuce ideas via e-mail, said Sunday, 'They may be implausible, but not by much.' He added: 'There's always to question of miracles.'" I very much enjoyed his Soviet disasters book from the early/mid-80's.
In the same article, the author concluded with:
"In theory, NASA could have had the shuttle descend through the atmosphere at a much shallower angle of entry in hopes of relieving the heat on the ship. But that could have had life-threatening dangers too. That kind of flight profile almost certainly would have had the shuttle coming in too fast to make a safe landing."
Since you are very much an expert in this field, what is the maximum landing speed of the shuttle? I saw it come in to Edwards a couple or times. That final flare seemed to burn off some speed. Could a shuttle hold that flare from a higher altitude if it was coming in "hot"? Was it ever contemplated what would happen if the gears could not be lowered and the shuttle pancaked in on a dry lake?