Discovery due home @4:30AM EST

[beefhole]

I wouldn't be surprised if the reasons were more along the lines of preventing another easily-seeable disaster.  If Discovery broke up on reentry, they didnt want them filming it this time-of course, maybe that had nothing to do with it.

[RichieB16]

I highly doubt that.  When Columbia broke up, they went out looking for people who had been filming the reentry because they wanted to use those films in the investigation.  They managed to compile a video of the whole reentry as visible from Earth of Columbia and figure out how many pieces came off and when (it was losing small pieces as earily in the reentry as California).  Plus, it landed in California and it was coming from the West so there was nobody there to film it because of the ocean.  I'm sure it had to do with the orbital trajectory-each time they go around there are in different places, they don't simply go in a circle like most people think-I want to say that ISS has 3 orbital "ring" like paths it travels as it orbits.