What's NORMAL this time? Was it just luck that there were 42 YEARS of flawless re-entry? This is not some big unknown. Approach the atmosphere at the correct angle and protect the vehicle from excessive heat. A former astronaut even said that re-entry is very peaceful and not violent like portrayed in the movies. The facts are on my side.
Yes, actually, it WAS luck... we've had failures during launch, failures while in space, and now we have a failure during re-entry... just because something never went wrong before doesn't mean it never will...
Secondly, I'd like to state that we have NOT had 42 years of successful re-entry with space shuttles - in fact, this particular re-entry was with the heaviest load ever - never before have we attempted re-entry with a load as heavy as was attempted the other day...
"Facts" may be on your side... "Reality" is on mine...