[Joe Hadenuf]

Is there a black box, so to speak, on board the shuttles?? Anyone??

[Movemout]

"Is there a black box, so to speak, on board the shuttles?? Anyone?? "

There are more than one. They recovered at least one after Challenger as I recall. Also don't forget that there is a constant stream of telemetry downlinked to mission control at JSC. There is very little doubt in my mind that the root cause(s) of this mishap will be identified.

[snopercod]

Is there a black box, so to speak, on board the shuttles??

Yes, there are tape recorders. It is highly unlikely that they survived re-entry intact.

[No Truce With Kings]

"Is there a black box, so to speak, on board the shuttles?? Anyone??"

Yes, there are data recorders, and even hardened boxes. However, Columbia disintegrated at Mach 18, and anything aboard then fell 200,000 feet. If the box stayed intact after disintegration, if the box survived impact, if the box can be found -- it could be buried 10 feet deep in the mud of some bayou or river -- and if the magnetic media retained the information stored on it, after exposure to extreme heating . . . in that case we can get a lot of useful information from it.

You are better off going thru the downlinked telemetry.

[pitinkie]

NO