Even though I really do not appreciate your making exagerated claims on my behalf..

You have to remember that Columbia was vehicle one - structurally it was different from the later shuttles. As for where you can get the information on the Columbia abort system, including the explosive bolt crew cabin/main body separation system, the NASA library may be about it, unless you happen to know someone who has a private copy of it - someone who really does not want to be bothered by most people... and I'm pretty sure that I can't help you there. The people who need(ed) that material, certainly have it - you might want to contact one of them -

Sceptical - "And I assume your argument is that all the post-Columbia analyses that talk about how/when the crew compartment might have failed after vehicle breakup are fraudulent and the result of conspiracies within NASA? Or has NASA too forgotten that the crew compartment was designed to re-enter on its own?"

No. You're mistaking the hysterical nonsense loaded with insults that a few "space enthusiasts" spout here at the (in)Habitable Zone with NASA's actions.

After their report was issued, the CAIB issued a separate statement on the integrity of the crew compartment, and their estimate of the time of its failure - very later during Columbia's entry.

Sceptical: "And what exactly is the point you are trying to make -- that NASA is lying and they survived down to parachute altitude and thus would have all lived if they still had ejection seats?"

No. NASA is not lying, and I never claimed that anyone there did.

Sceptical - "That Ramon killed them all by opening the hatch too early and you think they could have all bailed out?"

Sort of. Columbia's crew compartment was earlier estimated as being able to survive to Frei Punkit, at which its point ejection seats would be used.

Frei Punkt is about 180 miles per hour - that's a tough speed to bail out at without ejection seats, and I don't know how many of the crew, if any, would have survived.

As for Ramon, he MAY have had no way of knowing whether the bail out was too early or not, IF he survived that far. An attempted bailout MAY have resulted in the failure of crew compartment integrity. The catch is that without the hatch, we have no way of knowing.

The point I'm trying to get to here is the need for system independent bail out indicators attached to the shuttles' hatches. Even if my scenario, and without finding Columbia's hatch it remains exactly that, is wrong, in the case of shuttle failure on ASCENT the crew has no way of knowing if their speed is low enough that it's safe to bail out.

The other reason why determining crew cabin integrity is important is in terms of the engineering of billion dollar hypervelocity spacecraft, but we can leave that for the time being.

Finally, if even parts of the hatch lock mechanism could be found remaining in the side panel debris, it could throw a lot of light on the exact crew compartment failure mechanism - ruling out one scenario or the other.

ep