Hello
WOW this is not a tough question to answer, just a hard one to write. I was on my way to Kennedy Space Center the day the Space Shuttle Columbia broke up over Texas killing all of those aboard. The reason was quite simple. During launch, a piece of foam from the External Fuel Tank broke off hitting the left leading edge of the wing on the orbiter. The foam was about the size of a small brief case. No one at the time thought that it would have done much if any real damage to the shuttle. The shuttle was traveling at about 17,000 MPH when this happened. The cameras caught the incident during the launch but like I said, figured that it wasn't too bad. Well, as it turns out, it was VERY bad, and when the shuttle was coming back to the Earth, superheated gases were able to enter into the ship melting wiring and other components. This caused the shuttle to eventually break up high over the state of Texas. Killing all of those aboard! A sad day for space flight world wide!!!
I hope that this answers your question.
Take care
WOW this is not a tough question to answer, just a hard one to write. I was on my way to Kennedy Space Center the day the Space Shuttle Columbia broke up over Texas killing all of those aboard. The reason was quite simple. During launch, a piece of foam from the External Fuel Tank broke off hitting the left leading edge of the wing on the orbiter. The foam was about the size of a small brief case. No one at the time thought that it would have done much if any real damage to the shuttle. The shuttle was traveling at about 17,000 MPH when this happened. The cameras caught the incident during the launch but like I said, figured that it wasn't too bad. Well, as it turns out, it was VERY bad, and when the shuttle was coming back to the Earth, superheated gases were able to enter into the ship melting wiring and other components. This caused the shuttle to eventually break up high over the state of Texas. Killing all of those aboard! A sad day for space flight world wide!!!
I hope that this answers your question.
Take care