There is always the chance than one of the flaming chunks is large enough for you to ride in on the way down! But seriously, all astronauts take a huge risk in going up. All of these flights (at least NASA) have major telemetry...to both monitor things in both directions. And morbidly, to learn something if things go wrong. The idea being that they can fix things the next time around. If things come back in "big pieces", there is a chance that some of the telemetry is still available.