[John Jamieson]

I was actually involved in testing of a design I proposed back in the late 70's to put 100 50kilowatt searchlights around the pad to warm a black painted ET to prevent ice. We tested it at Egland AFB and it worked, but was never installed.

Vandenburg was to use two jet engines firing up between the ET and orbiter. But Vandenburg launches (The Blue Shuttle) were cancelled after Challenger.

STS 87 was after my time, but it must have been a cold, humid day to produce that much ice. The hard surface of the tile is barely thicker than paint and can be damaged by a quarter dropped from 2 feet. Glancing blows are far more forgiving.

[Jael]

I don't think it was ice. It was insulation. Also, now the page from Greg Katnik will not open. It was a NASA page which outlined the foam changes and problems.

[Stefan Stackhouse]

The hard surface of the tile is barely thicker than paint and can be damaged by a quarter dropped from 2 feet. Glancing blows are far more forgiving.

And what kind of damage could a direct collision with orbiting "space junk" do? Don't you think it is rather odd that this is a hypothesis that NOBODY has mentioned anything about?