NASA Was Told in 1990 About Vulnerable Tiles

• Published in: The New York times
• Main Author: WILLIAM J. BROAD and DAVID E. SANGER
• Format: Newspaper Article
• Language: English
• Published: New York, N.Y New York Times Company 05.02.2003
• Edition: Late Edition (East Coast)
• Subjects: Accident investigations; Disasters; Space shuttle; Tiles; United States > US
• ISSN: 0362-4331

NASA officials said yesterday that they still believed that the object that hit the underside of the wing on takeoff was foam insulation, but there is growing speculation that it may have been mixed with ice. Video images taken about 80 seconds into the flight show the object to be white or light -- the insulation itself is bright orange -- fueling speculation that NASA engineers may have seriously underestimated its weight when they concluded that a blow from a block of rigid foam would pose no safety hazard to the orbiter. The insulation is applied as a shaving cream-like foam, but turns hard as a brick. In another indication that NASA is focusing on the likelihood that foam may have broken loose from an external fuel tank and damaged the spacecraft, a team of investigators spent a second day yesterday examining records concerning the construction of the tank at the agency's Michoud Assembly Facility in New Orleans. Parts of the factory were shut down on Monday and records have been secured by a team of about 20 investigators from NASA. The scientists began their analysis by studying how debris flying off the shuttle's external fuel tank and booster rockets -- including ice and hardened foam -- had damaged orbiter tiles during the shuttle's first 33 flights. They found high-, medium- and low-damage zones. Tile damage in the wheel areas was relatively high, as it was along the whole right side of the underbelly. That, they found, was because foam insulation had flown off two long pipes that run alongside the external fuel tank.