[lavaroise]

PIOs? Structural failure during turns?

[George W. Bush]

We can hope that their fate was very quick and catastrophic.

The shuttle is and has always been an engineering disaster waiting to happen. We can hardly be surprised that this has happened again.

[bonesmccoy]

I was thinking the same thing... but the question is what the inciting cause was.

Obviously the vehicle broke up... the entire space shuttle system is now down.

Who is the crew up on the space station?

They may need to bring the crew down via Soyuz.

[leadpenny]

PIOs? Structural failure during turns?

I've watched a bunch of these recoveries and have never seen a time when they did these steep turns so far out.