MuTu oli väärässä, kyseessä oli reilu 700 grammaa eristettä:
'The Columbia and its crew were lost because a 1.67-pound piece of insulating foam that had fallen off the external tank during liftoff crashed through the leading edge of the shuttle's left wing. The resulting hole admitted superheated gases during the shuttle's fiery re-entry into the atmosphere on Feb. 1, 2003.
That chunk fell from an area of hand-applied foam called the bipod arm ramp. The ramp's insulating foam surrounded the struts connecting the tank to the orbiter, and were originally designed to prevent ice from forming and becoming a debris hazard. But NASA had noticed that the bipod arm ramp tended to shed foam and decided to redesign it. They planned to replace it after the Columbia flight.
After the Columbia accident, the investigators who implicated the falling foam as the physical cause demanded that NASA find ways to sharply limit the amount of foam that falls off the external tank. Just as important, the investigative board determined, a "broken safety culture" tended to play down risks.
In response, NASA extensively tested foam and the way it is applied, modified the tank so that it would be less likely to shed debris, and replaced the foam-covered ramps with a heater.
In the incident described here on Wednesday, the new piece of foam - a hat-shaped chunk as much as 33 inches across at the widest part and 14 inches at the narrow part - sheared off another ramp on the external tank. It is known as the protuberance air load ramp, which NASA abbreviates as the PAL ramp, and was designed to minimize crosswise airflow and turbulence around cable trays and lines used to pressurize the external tank. The new piece is slightly smaller than the briefcase-size piece that hit the Columbia, Mr. Hale said.'
Tämä New York Timesin mukaan.