[Navy Patriot]

You are correct, the banning of chlorofluorocarbons used in making the high quality foam insulation for the external tanks, doomed the ability to boost the Orbiter and the Orbiter itself.

However, environmentalists make good compost.

[rktman]

Yeah, using GN2 to apply the SOFI caused, for whatever reason, a change to it’s makeup. We fought them off for several years with waivers but the won in the end. Although we always had some foam loss on each launch but nothing like after the change.