[squidly]

A NASA buddy told me about this the day after the disaster. Apparently, he didn't need this test to know it. Now y'all are going to love this....

What he said was that the foam on the fuel tank used to be treated with this aerosol stuff. There were no problems then. Environmental groups objected though, said the stuff they were treating the foam with was damaging the ozone layer. So they quit using it and used a more "earth friendly" substitute. Problems began. The foam started "popcorning" and pieces of it would break off from time to time. NASA engineers had been fretting over it for some time, but apparently nothing could or would be done. And this is the end result.

[dark_lord]

Yes. This issue was surfaced on this forum the day of or the day after the disaster. Yet NONE of the major news media has carried this story. You would think some enterprising editor would be shouting "stop the presses!" to get this story into print. (Oh nevermind they have retired anyone who still remembers when newspapers were printed with "presses".) Anyway, it is not politically correct to point out a direct correlation between trying to be "environmentally friendly" and the cause of the disaster.