When viewing reentry from inside a space-shuttle, the color of the flame is usually blue or green, not orange. This is due to the specific type of shielding used on the outside of the shuttle.
John Daniels refers to 17,500 miles per hour as "escape velocity". 17,500 miles per hour is standard low earth orbit velocity, considerably lower than Earth's escape velocity, which is approximately 25,000 miles per hour.
A character refers to DC-10 pilots shifting fuel to steer their crippled airliner, and duplicates the maneuver in the space shuttle. In the incident to which he refers, United Airlines Flight 232, the pilots steered by shifting engine power, not by shifting fuel.