Space Shuttle disintegrates on re-entry
0During the launch, a piece of insulative foam broke off Space Shuttle Columbia's external fuel tank and struck the thermal protection tiles on the shuttle’s left wing.
The impact was detected on the ground but before reentry, NASA managers had limited the investigation, possibly believing the damage was slight and reasoning that the crew could not have fixed the problem even if it had been confirmed.
As a result the crew were informed that some damage had occurred but
were basically told not to worry about it.
When Columbia reentered the atmosphere, the damage allowed hot atmospheric gasses to penetrate the heat shield and destroy the internal wing structure, which caused the orbiter to become unstable and break apart.
All 7 crew members were killed.
The recovery process took weeks as the debris field was spread over hundreds of miles of Eastern Texas and were hampered slightly by individuals selling pieces of shuttle on eBay
The disaster delayed the construction of the International Space Station and was a major contributing factor to the retirement of the space shuttle program.
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