CAT Scans Suggest Cause of Columbia Disaster

Kathy Miles writes "The latest information from Columbia's flight data recorder, along with CAT scan results from RCC layers from shuttle Atlantis' leading wing edge, may give clues to what really happened to Columbia. The flight data recorder shows that there was likely structural damage before Columbia began re-entry. Investigators have been looking at the remaining shuttles and have done CAT scans on Atlantis' reinforced carbon-carbon layers, which show gaps that should not be there. If Columbia had similar gaps, it could have doomed the orbiter."

Comments

I wished I could trust NASA...

[HotNeedleOfInquiry]

But I strongly suspect that any cause of the shuttle loss will be phrased so that Ron Ditmore doesn't have to lose his job.

He lost tons of credibility in the beginning when he stood up and said that it couldn't be the foam that caused the problem. Soon after, we learned that he refused the request of NASA engineers to have pictures taken of the craft while in orbit.