Ah...but remember "moments before" means travelling an awful lot of miles. If the shuttle was travelling at about mach 18, or around 12,500 miles per hour, that would be around 208 miles per minute. Mission control reported an intial loss of sensors (which would be mounted in/near/on the heat tiles) at around 7:56 CST, they had last communication with the shuttle at approximately 7:59 and lost all contact moments before 8:00. This puts the shuttle, figuring about 4 minutes x 208 miles per minute, a little more than 800 miles NW of Dallas- or consistent with a California, Nevada, Southern Utah projectory. Timing is right and consistent with something going amiss with the left wing, and then either a continued and massive loss of the heat resistant tiles or a change in position (e.g., flipping the shuttle around so side/back was going "first" ), which then caused a catastrophic event. Now Mission Control must gather evidence to support this hypothesis or a competing hypothesis, and then they will work on finding out WHAT events led to the loss of the shuttle. Last step is to develop solutions to prevent it from reoccuring. They will- and the program will continue.
It is such a tragedy- we have lost 7 of our best scientists, and years and years of data and research (in some cases, more than 10 years effort was lost). The 7 astronauts were up in space, but they represented hundreds and hundreds of researchers back here on earth. But perhaps these brave adventurers did not die in vain. Perhaps we will learn to value research, to better understand and value our scientists (oh for the day science garners as much support as the super bowl!)....and perhaps our younger generation will be awed and motivated to take over where these fine individuals left off. As a "science geek" myself, I can only hope that we find strength and not defeat in Saturday's events.
