Columbia

[Fearless Freep]

I hope NASA does a thorough check and overhaul of the rest of the shuttles before any are sent up again. Something is seriously wrong when it just breaks up like that.

Not really.  The margin for error in reentry is very small.  There's only a leeway of a few degrees in angle of attack and outside that window, this will happen.

The analysis of the shuttle system early on predicted such a event in one in every X number of flights ( I don't know what X is, but the statistical analysis was done to predict it).  The entire system and mission is horrendously complicated and still very dangerious, which we sometimes forget because they've managed to do so well.

 It doesn't take something seriously wrong or a 'screw up' for this to happen.  All it takes is the odds against you this time around.

[JohnL]

>Wasn't this shuttle the oldest one still in use from 1981? I think they pushed it one
>too many times and from now on have to really throughly inspect the shuttles.

They said on the news that each shuttle is designed for 100 flights and this was only the 28th for Columbia.

>Not really. The margin for error in reentry is very small. There's only a leeway of
>a few degrees in angle of attack and outside that window, this will happen.

In other words, the pilot probably screwed up?

Who wants to bets on how long it will be before they suddenly know what (almost certainly) happened and the news starts interviewing NASA janitors who'll say "I told 'em that port-side, carbonizing latch nozzle was going to fail. I warned 'em!"

The same thing happened with the Challenger; when it happened, everyone said they had no clue what could have gone wrong. 6 months later it was like everyone in NASA *KNEW* the O-rings were going to fail and was just holding their breath waiting for it to happen.

[Fearless Freep]

In other words, the pilot probably screwed up?

I wouldn't say 'screwed up' any more than  Dale Earnhardt "screwed up".  Sometimes you do your best and sometimes, that time around, it's just not good enough.  Maybe not because you weren't good enough but maybe that time around, nobody's best would've been good enough.   Sometimes the unexpected or unforseen or unpredictable happens

Sometimes, it's nobody's 'fault'.