Okay, now that I'm back from a day of "shopping/quilting" therapy...
1) I work for a NASA contractor rather than NASA itself. I don't work on anything mission critical at all, and no, I didn't know the people. I do, however, have several co-workers who *did* work with these people. Needless to say, they're even more upset over this than I am.
2) I have <i>no more</i> information than what y'all have. My feelings that it's not just an accident are based solely on 1) the state of the world right now, 2) the date, and 3) the fact that the first Israli was on board, which would make it a *VERY* tempting target for terrorists. Shoot, I don't even have as much information as some of y'all who have been watching the news all day.

My feelings are solely my own, and don't reflect anything from work or any information I have.
3) Laura (***********) is very correct that we do this so often and so well for so many years that we've gotten complacent about how dangerous space flight really is. NOT WHERE I WORK, but the world in general. A lot of people forget just how much power it takes to get up into space and then return.
4) I do want to make one more observation -- thank you, everyone, for not immediately jumping up and down for the closure of the space program based on this incident. As a whole, the space program has had an unbelievably increadible safety record since Challenger. I'm amazed that so few people (if any) are calling for the closure of the space program over this incident.