[Dajjal]

I think that a terrorist sabotaging inside the wing to break off critical tiles is the most likely explanation.

Shuttle trips may be blase' news in the States, but this one was daily front-page material in Israel. And a pilot who had bombed Iraq to boot!

You can be sure that the Islamicists certainly would have made every effort to sabotage this particular shuttle flight, even if you think the actual cause was random structural weakness due to age.

This would be too big a coup to pass up. They must have at least tried.

By the same token, it is important that the US Govt. appear as impervious to attack as possible, and to "rule out" terrorism from the start.

And non-claiming-of-responsibility is not an argument. No terrorist group has ever issued a formal statement claiming success for 9/11. All we have is one al-Qaeda leader making a comment in an interview where he seems to say that they did it, months after the fact.

Lots of terrorist acts are never "claimed." (Particularly here it should not be expected, if they have someone who is still working for NASA!)

[Dajjal]

I suspect that the terrorists' actually intended that the wing be so damaged that the shuttle would overheat on the launch. But the bomb turned out to be too small to cause that to happen. However, the damage was big enough to destroy it upon its return.

[tiki]

I have thought that the coincidence of the I sraeli astronaut was eerie and have thought the worst but I hope it was not. But...if it was-there should be hell to pay.

[Polycarp]

It was damage at liftoff:

Gash possibly 7 1/2 FEET long, 7 1/2 INCHES wide.

Did NASA know there was a problem? PIC and Excerpts from an Israeli Article

BREAKING: NBC News finds Jan 30 NASA Memo showing serious concern about tile damage!