Replies

Bruce Wright, a quality assurance supervisor who spent more than 22 years at Lockheed, believes he inspected the external fuel tank that helped launch Columbia.

He said he noted "bare metal'' during his 2000 inspection of the bi-pod area, the place where the shuttle is connected to the external tank by two pod-like legs. That is the spot where foam came off the Columbia at launch.

The "concern was the primer, that it was not a continuous job and was not fully covering the bare metal,'' he said.

Wright said the bare metal he noticed came at a stage where it was easily repaired, and that sometimes spots are intentionally left bare in order to install nuts and bolts and other necessary hardware.

"But the primer applied had not fully covered the bare metal. They had some failures which is not normal because unless the primer is applied correctly, the foam will eat the aluminum,'' he said.

When mistakes were made, the company sometimes avoided filing discrepancy reports to NASA, some inspectors said.

SNIP

Here is a bit more from Michoud.