[jpthomas]

This heat spike during ascent in close temporal and spatial proximity to the insulation strike is the smoking gun that confirms that the foam impact caused the fatal breach in the shuttle's thermal protection system.

[friendly]

I love all the so-called NASA experts originally saying the insulation was absolutely NOT the cause.

The foam was another Clinton evil: the properly working, correct original foam insulation was not "environmentally friendly" enough and was ordered replaced by that disgusting corrupt Clinton EPA director.

Gee, I wonder if the Old Media is going to follow up on this story?

[mewzilla]

If they suspected the damage, could they have done something? Probably not," a source said. "But you never want to say there was nothing that could have been done, because you never know what 1,000 people all working on one problem might come up with."

Yeah, heaven forfend they might be honest with the astronauts about what they might face coming home...

[friendly]

From Newsmax.com

Tuesday, Feb. 4, 2003

Clinton Environmental Policy Sabotaged the Shuttle

Thank fussy "environmentalists" from the Clinton administration for the substandard but politically correct foam that NASA thinks caused the Columbia disaster.

"NASA engineers have known for at least five years that insulating foam could peel off the space shuttle's external fuel tanks and damage the vital heat-protecting tiles that the space agency says were the likely 'root cause' of Saturday's shuttle disaster," the left-of-center Philadelphia Inquirer noted today in an article by Knight Ridder News Service.

So why was such a crummy substance used in such a crucial capacity, with the lives of seven astronauts at stake? Because "environmentalists" fretting about their theory of human-caused "global warming" wanted to use it.

In a 1997 report, NASA mechanical systems engineer Greg Katnik "noted that the 1997 mission, STS-87, was the first to use a new method of 'foaming' the tanks, one designed to address NASA's goal of using environmentally friendly products. The shift came as the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency was ordering many industries to phase out the use of Freon, an aerosol propellant linked to ozone depletion and global warming," Knight Ridder reported.

Insulation is sprayed on the shuttle's tanks to keep the super-cooled hydrogen and oxygen fuels at the correct temperature.

(Excerpt) See: http://www.newsmax.com/archive/print.shtml?a=2003/2/4/174925

[E. Pluribus Unum]

This heat spike during ascent in close temporal and spatial proximity to the insulation strike is the smoking gun that confirms that the foam impact caused the fatal breach in the shuttle's thermal protection system.

The only hope would have been to abort the flight right then.

[Springman]

Ping!

[snopercod]

Not necessarily a smoking gun. Twenty seconds before the debris strike, Columbia encountered a severe wind shear which may have broken the leading edge by itself, or weakened it so much that the foam broke it.

A few pieces of insulating foam or other debris broke off the external fuel tank 81 seconds after liftoff and slammed into the leading edge of Columbia's left wing.

But the board also indicated the wing may have been made more vulnerable to debris damage because it was buffeted by unusual wind shear about 20 seconds earlier in the liftoff.

The wind shear was within NASA's safety limits, but it was the strongest gust ever seen so close to the point where the shuttle is exposed to the maximum aerodynamic stress of liftoff, the board said. That point occurs around 80 seconds into a launch.

Not only that, but just before the previous Columbia flight (STS-109), some kind of modification was done to the leading edge of columbia. All the RCC was removed, some mod was performed, and all the RCC and surrounding tile was replaced. We still don't have any answers about that.