Umm, the terrorist, if any, might not need credit, what if they just wanted to get rid of any experimental conclusions found by the crew coming to earth, or they might just kill for the fun of it. Also, i never said I think theres a terrorist, I was asking for everyones opinion and take on this subject, nowhere did i say I think a terrorost did this.
The Conjuror

Well, technically speaking the missle would not have to catch the shuttle, but intercept it head on... it was flying a pretty static flight path...easy to predict where it would be to within a few seconds.

Even so, and even if terrorists had a missile that could reach that altitude, it'd be a long shot (literally). Say you know the exact timing, speed, and position of when a housefly will cross a gymnasium, and you're standing at the other end of the gym with a BB gun. Your chances of hitting the fly are astronomically low -- so low that it isn't even worth your while to waste a BB trying.

Actually, the prevailing theory is that it has a lot to do with a "small" accident on launch... A piece of insulation from the main fuel tank (the big orange one) fell off and struck the left wing shortly after the shuttle took off...

It was decided then that the damage was minimal, and not to worry about it...

Then, upon reentry, a bunch of sensors in the left wing went dead... And just before the explosion, the computers recorded a hard turn that the flight computer tried to correct...

This suggests that the damage on launch probably knocked a few of the heat tiles either loose or completely off of the left wing... Upon reentry, the heat on that wing (that was noe able to enter the craft due to missing heat tiles) burned the sensors first...and then caused major damage to the wing itself... Causing the ship to turn, because that wing was creating more drag than it was supposed to... At those speeds, and in that heat, any deviation from perfect aerodynamic alignment causes a lot of damage due to wind resistance... Probably akin to hitting a concrete wall... Think of it like a major belly flop into the pool off the high dive... In this case, those forces caused the ship to explode...

But don't get me wrong, I'm definitely not an expert, and I don't work for NASA...but these are the facts they've presented, along with some of my own personal conjecture...

Here is another issue, what about the fact that NASA is saying that we cant touch the debris, i think they are saying this just so they can get it for themselves because the fact that any germs or toxic bacteria could survive a decontamination process of every part of the ship, extremely cold temperatures in space, and extremelt hot temperatures while exploding, really doesnt make that much sense at all, it is know that bacteria cant survive in any of these three things, and all were applied.

What about water bears? Okay, so they aren't bacteria, but still....

SuperSaiyanGokuX wrote:

Actually, the prevailing theory is that it has a lot to do
with a "small" accident on launch... A piece of insulation
from the main fuel tank (the big orange one) fell off and
struck the left wing shortly after the shuttle took off...

The problem that my friend at JSC hears the engineers scratching their chins about is that while the debris appears to have hit the wing on the leading edge, the temperature increases and subsequent sensor failures began at the *back* of the wing... Jeff says they hope to see that wing in more detail if and when it is recovered...

And, Gughunter, when my BB has fairly advanced avionics and heat tracking devices (gotta admit the shuttle was pretty hot at the time), I increase my chance of hitting that fly.

Anyway, as mentioned, the missle could not make it up there from a ground based facility, nor were there any other aircraft reported nearby... I'm confident this had no terrorist connections.

Water is water. Saying there isn't enough clean water on Earth is even less valid than saying their isn't enough land on earth. 2/3rds of our planet is water (actually, 2/3rds of the surface area is water, but still, it's a lot). Even with that much water, the "dirty" water we have can be purified. It's not easy to get rid of water. You're going to have to do a lot more than dump radioactive waste into it. The only water that is truely wasted would be the stuff that astronauts drink, which is then, eventually, flushed into space.

they dont use gas.