The team investigating the Columbia space shuttle disaster say they have found why it disintegrated in mid-air. After a simulation test, investigators said they had proof that a piece of foam insulation hitting the orbiter's left wing led to its destruction. Scott Hubbard, a member of the Columbia Accident Investigation Board, said the test carried out on Monday showed that this was "the most probable cause" of the shuttle's break-up when it had entered the atmosphere. In the test, a piece of foam was fired at high speeds into a wing panel of a similar shuttle, blowing open a large hole. "We have found the smoking gun," Mr Hubbard said after the test at the Southwest Investigation Institute in San Antonio. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/3053336.stm More at Space.com: http://www.space.com/missionlaunches/sts107_foam_030707.html
Was there any doubt in anyones mind that this wasn't always the reason? I mean common, who can honestly say that they thought it might have been something else that caused the shuttle break-up. It's pretty scary when you think that a place as advanced and important as NASA still has as much red tape, politics, and pig-headed management as everything else. The people in charge of that shuttle's safety and investigation team who made the decision that the foam was not a problem while the shuttle was still in space should be dragged out in the middle of a public place and shot in the face. (sorry for the rant there)
I'm glad they've finally put this one to rest now; people can now write it in the history books as what happened and then leave it...
