The problem is a technical one, not a management one imho.
That's not saying much for NASA. After the fuel gauge problem, I was expecting something else to go wrong. The shuttle is OLD. Way past its prime. I'm just glad the astronauts made it up there alive. Now let's hope they make it back alive.
You think the people at Nasa knew before watching the video from the tank camera that the foam would fall off?
It's happened before. The foam is an ongoing problem. They knew there was a strong possibility (or probability) that a chunk of foam would fall off and hit the shuttle. Yet they let the shuttle go up anyway. NASA said it was a "test flight". Why were they gambling with peoples' lives? The astronauts, you may have read, were disappointed (probably an understatement) to hear that the foam problem was still an issue. Did NASA just forget about the foam problem, or did they assure the astronauts that the problem didn't exist anymore? Either way, it was a bad decision to send up an aging shuttle with known problems. I can't imagine the stress of the astronauts on the return flight.