News is reporting that the Space Shuttle has exploded........

Carol, we don't have that news here yet.. has it been confirmed that Columbia has exploded.. are there any reports of debris?

Thanks
Sarah

NASA lost contact with the shuttle at 9am ET this morning as it was coming over Texas on its way to Kennedy Space Center for its landing. When Merritt Island wasn't able to pick them up on radar or UHF comms by the time they were supposed to, NASA moved into their contingency plans.

TV station WFAA out of Texas has sent video to CNN showing the shuttle going overhead on its way in to landing. It then shows something that looks remarkably like pieces flying off...

I'm praying we don't have another Challenger on our hands, but I'm afraid my prayers aren't going to be answered...

Faith

Then it must have broken up entering the Earth's atmosphere.. something was wrong from the start??

OK, thanks Faith.. we have just been given the Breaking News here..

They are not yet ruling out possible survivors, although the film fottage is not encouraging.

My prayers go out to all the austronauts and their families. God bless them and somehow bring them home.

Seems you all have the news now and it certainly doesn't look encouraging ........flashes me back to Challenger.

morning all...i just woke up and Michael is watching fox news, covering the tragedy. i am just sick. i watched this one take off a couple of weeks ago...i hadn't watched a take off in a long time, and i just remembered how amazing it was...i am just sick, my heart goes out to the families...

good afternoon/morning to you all,
this aint looking good, just saw the pic's on CNN, but still keep my fingers crossed to hear better news
Joost

cnn.com is now reporting that they're getting debris in East Texas...

I think we're all flashing back to Challenger...

As we watched on NASA Select this morning, I kept thinking "they're going to get back in communications with them any second." But as the minutes went by, and they didn't respond to the comms check... and then when Voice of Mission Control mentioned that Merritt Island C-band radar wasn't picking up -anything- moving in the area...

sigh... I hope I didn't just watch the US space program go down, too...

Faith

Faith, I'm afraid they are gone. There is almost no chance anyone survived that breakup. Prayers for the families. NASA just lowered their flags to half staff, pretty sure indication.

Oh my goodness. I just popped to the hair salon, and now this is happening. I was watching when Challenger exploded, I never thought I would see it again. Columbia exploded minutes before it was due to land they are saying. Annie B.

Annie B, just check CNN, the're you say continously the sadly pic's
Joost

Marianne, I did put the news on as soon as I read about it on this thread. I just can't watch it anymore at the moment. Annie B.

It's hard to believe. Our thoughts are with all the family and friends of the astronauts. I doubt if anyone can survive. It was at 60 KM above the ground...

and they were traveling at 12,000 miles per hour...like i said, i am just sick.

We have been told in France too. It is horrible and so hard to believe. I don't think anybody could survive, I just wish the crew didn't suffer, but I am not sure. They certainly understood what was happening. I feel so sad and my thoughts are especially close to the families. Oh my God,it must be terrible for them.

Very tragic

I just learned about this when checking my e-mail (CNN's Breaking News e-mails).

On another mailing list I belong to, someone posted the dates of other NASA disasters:

Apollo 1 fire: January 27th, 1967
Challenger: January 28th, 1986
Columbia: February 1st, 2003

Eerie how close all those dates are (ignoring the year)...

Jake

jake, michael and i were talking about the date proximity as well. we couldn't remember the day that the apollo 1 wend down, but that is just very eerie...

That is kinda spooky, but I don't think it's more than a coincidence. I hope they find out what the cause was soon, so they can (try to) prevent this in the future.

Martin

jake, thanks for moving this thread to a special place...martin, i am watching the nasa news conference now, they are reporting that they had some loss of heat sensor information on the left wing a few minutes before they lost contact with the shuttle...

Hi Cynde, I just watched that news conference too. When I first saw Carol's post, I couldn't help but think that maybe something happened at take-off. I certainly don't want to come to any conclusions, but I can't help but feel there's a connection between (what I have recently learned about), a piece of the protective foam coming loose and striking the shuttle's wing; then 16 days later this terrible disaster.

How long was it on it's mission? I am so bad, I knew nothing about Columbia's launch. Perhaps while I was in Bonaire?

It's been a grim day.

Prayers for the families..peace to all here.

Annie cc. I think Columbia took off 16 days ago. They are now saying it could be that the pilot controls may have failed. They have to manually pilot the craft to a 35 degree angle as it hits the earth's atmosphere. Annie B.

They were up there for 16 days, during which the mission went particularly well. Makes it even that much harder to have this happen on the way home...

The head of NASA, Sean O'Keefe, looked terrible at the 1pm news briefing. He had just gotten back from talking to the families, and he looked like he hadn't slept in weeks...

Personally, I'm going to wait until NASA puts out their official report before I pay much heed to causes -- the media is having a field day with speculation, whereas NASA is going to comb through every bit of data and every bit of wreckage...

Faith

I understand that during the launch a tile from the main fuel tank came loose and hit the left wing leading edge. Engineers evaluating the situation could not detect damage. Hidden damage and loss of heat shield tiles on reentry would be consistent with loss of heat sensor data, wing structure heating and then vehicle breakup.

The really hard part for all the NASA team was that there was nothing that could have been done to further evaulate/repair the tiles in orbit. Columbia had to come back-- all NASA could do was cross their fingers and try. Glad not to be in any Columbia team shoes. Bad day.

Faith. I agree, the media are having a field day with this. It is shocking enough as it is. Annie b.

i watched the columbia take off this last time. it was weird as i hadn't watched a shuttle launch in a very long time. i was in awe of the whole thing as it had been such a long time since i had taken view of the splendor. i had the chance to visit the kennedy space center a few years ago, and it is certainly worth the trip...again, my heart goes out to their families, such a tragedy...

Please God, keep them safe in eternal life. Let them sleep peacefully. Annie B.