Columbia Disaster - New York Times

NASA Now Doubts Tank Foam Debris Doomed Columbia


Mr. Dittemore said that the foam piece was estimated to be traveling at 750 feet a second, or 510 miles an hour, relative to the shuttle vehicle, which was then moving at 2,300 feet a second, or 1,570 miles an hour.

They also assumed that the piece was 20 inches by 16 inches by 6 inches thick and weighed 2.67 pounds.

He also dismissed speculation that the piece of foam could have been saturated with water or encrusted in ice heavy enough to magnify the damage it did to the heat-dissipating tiles on the underside of the shuttle's left wing.

Though the foam-covered tank sat on the Cape Canaveral launching pad for 39 days and was exposed to several heavy rainstorms before liftoff, Mr. Dittemore said the foam was designed to be impervious to moisture.

I would still look closely at this incident.

Experts who have studied complex disasters say it is too soon to rule out any potential cause. Seventeen years ago, after the shuttle Challenger exploded, engineers responsible for the design of the solid rocket boosters played down the possibility that faulty O-ring seals could have leaked to cause the accident — only to reverse themselves weeks later.


Range of Theories, but None That Seems to Fit All the Facts


Engineers List All the Ideas, Striking Them One by One