[diverteach]

"OK, what the heck has NASA been doing for the past two years?"

Spending over $1 billion.

Looks like they've spent that $1 billion on a bunch of new cameras to take higher resolution pictures of the foam insulation falling off to prove that the new foam sucks.
Funny thing is is that they already knew it fell off upon inspection of a shuttle after its return.

[JustDoItAlways]

The foam is just insulation to keep the fuel cold before lift-off.

A new design for the insulation factor is needed since it is clear that this flimsy-any-kind-of-other-foam-as-well design is too dangerous to the shuttle now (same problem was there for the first 100 flights though.)

Solid rocket booster instead, thicker tank, up-to-the-minute fueling, new vehicle are the only options really.

Will be a long time and lots of testing before she goes up again.

[LM_Guy]

The dings to the shuttle tiles were from ice, not foam. The new foam falling off is not really that bad but unfortunately it looks like it was caused from the changes made solve the problem for the original location.
A. 1 Billion was not for cameras
B. The area were most foam was falling off has been eliminated (so-far) this area is completely different
C. If my suspicion is right they will have to reverse a design change and instead add more heaters.

[demlosers]

"OK, what the heck has NASA been doing for the past two years?"

Spending over $1 billion.

Looks like they've spent that $1 billion on a bunch of new cameras to take higher resolution pictures of the foam insulation falling off to prove that the new foam sucks.

Putting it that way sure makes them look stupid. NASA, go back to the old foam.