Did it have to happen?

[Ivo Skoric]

Curiously, nobody (yet) claimed credit for spectacular destruction 
of space shuttle Columbia. Not Saddam, not Bin Laden, not 
Hamas, not Hezbollah, nor anybody else. And there could be no 
more perfect opportunity. 

The shuttle carried the first ever Israeli in space. The shuttle also 
carried the first ever Indian women in space. Both must have 
irritated the Islamist militants worldwide. And not only it fell apart 
over Texas, the home state of the sitting American president, but 
the tragedy occurred approximately over Palestine, TX. 

Heavily laden with symbols, asuming the sordid, fatalist inevitability 
of an act of God, spectacular in its grandiosity - was this the first 
time the New York Times featured a picture above its logo? - the 
event looked almost as a signature of what one would expect of Al 
Qaeda.

But not even the Pentagon has the means to shoot down a 
spacecraft flying at 16000 mph 30 miles above the Earth. Space 
Shuttle is faster than any military figher or missile. It is the most 
advanced flying machine human race so far constructed. 

It is on the top of the food chain of the aerospace industry and it 
has no 'natural enemies' that can harm it. If one considers a 
posibility of a sabotage, or a bomb on board, then the shuttle would 
explode in the air, not merely fall apart.

So, it is probably true that the official version of the accident is 
valid. The foam from the fuel tank damaged the heat protection tiles 
on the left wing at launch, and the tiles did not hold at re-entry, 
making the aluminum of the wing to melt, wing probably fell off, and 
the shuttle's structure just couldn't proceed with re-entry.

While this seems plausible, it sounds incredible that NASA did not 
insist that someone from the shuttle crew inspect the damage, 
while shuttle was in orbit, and try to determine whether the craft 
can return safely to atmosphere. The inability to repair fragile tiles 
in space, seems to be an obvious, and very costly, flaw.

Maybe the shuttle crew could have gone to the International Space 
Station and chill there, waiting for Russian Progress rocket to bring 
in spare tiles and supplies for extended stay, and/or maybe 
another shuttle could have been launched to pick up stranded 
crew. Spacewalk is a decades old practice, so why it was not 
implemented? Almost anything now sounds better than what 
happened.

And it does look incredulous that Saddam did not yet bank on the 
opportunity to appear strong to his people by publicly warning 
Americans that their military will share the fate of their spacecraft, 
if they dare to attack Iraq. Which could be possible if Pentagon 
shares NASA's reliance on hope instead of on facts.

ivo