By Ron Cowen
The space shuttle Columbia, which tore apart killing all seven of its crew on Feb. 1 just minutes before it was scheduled to land, may have been doomed since its liftoff. That’s when an estimated 2.7-pound chunk of insulating foam, perhaps combined with ice, came loose from the main external fuel tank and struck the underside of the shuttle’s left wing near the wheel well. The chunk was the largest piece of debris known to have struck a shuttle during launch.
Engineers first became aware of the mishap while watching a video of the liftoff on Jan. 17, the day after launch. After a weeklong analysis, while Columbia was still in orbit, they concluded that the shuttle had not suffered significant damage. That analysis focused mainly on the heat-resistant ceramic tiles that protect the shuttle during its fiery reentry through Earth’s atmosphere.