The foam dislodgement was a recurring problem that was being looked at by both engineering and management.
The "accident" wasn't the foam dislodgement, however. The shuttle disintegrated because nobody got out to look at the wing, and the wing was damaged and disintegrated on re-entry. The "risk assessment" was done by a new crew -- from Boeing -- using outdated software.
As to my quip about the "markets", it was just an analogy and a look at what impersonal modes of operation result in -- namely, disregard of much that is human.
Kindest Regards
The Missing Link?
Wing Test Could Offer Breakthrough in Columbia Inquiry
By Gina Treadgold and Lisa Stark
May 30
- It may be the missing link for investigators trying to figure out why the space shuttle Columbia broke up over Texas in February.
A test conducted Thursday at Southwest Research in San Antonio could provide the first scientific evidence of just how damage occurred in the shuttle disaster.
Foam fired at a fiberglass shuttle wing loosened a seal between critical heat panels that protect the leading edge of the wing from searing gases on re-entry.
The foam was fired at the same speed - more than 500 miles an hour - and the same angle as the piece of foam that hit the shuttle Columbia on lift-off.
The impact jarred one of the seals between the thermal panels, leaving a gap 22 inches long, ranging from the thickness of a dime to a quarter of an inch.
On the Columbia, an object that was seen floating away from the shuttle on day two of the mission may have further widened that gap, which would have later exposed the shuttle to the extreme temperatures and thermal stresses of reentry.
Missing Piece of Evidence
Investigators knew foam flew off the external fuel tank attached to Columbia 82 seconds after lift-off. And as ABCNEWS first reported, sensors from a data recorder on Columbia recovered after the disaster showed heating at 120 seconds into flight, which indicates the left wing was critically punctured during liftoff.
They also knew the shuttle burned up on re-entry probably due to a breach in the leading edge of the wing. But proving that the foam strike had actually caused that breach has been difficult.
"It's not an 'aha' moment," says Lt. Col. "Woody" Woodyard of the Columbia Accident Investigation Board, "but it certainly is important."
The wing section used in Thursday's test was made of fiberglass and is from the shuttle Enterprise. Enterprise was a prototype and never flew in space. Fiberglass is two and a half times stronger than the carbon composite material used on the real shuttles. So damage to Columbia's wing may have been even more dramatic.
Earlier this week there was also evidence the breach in Columbia's wing may've been a missing seal. The investigative board says extensive analysis has shown that an object that floated away from the shuttle during its second day in orbit matches the profile of half of a seal.
Further testing is planned at Southwest Research, in which foam will be fired at panels just like those on Columbia. This test will duplicate as closely as possible the incident on lift-off. The board considers the test so significant, it has moved up the test date to early June.
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