AS NASA sifts through the charred wreckage of the space shuttle Columbia, a picture of the events that may have led to its demise is slowly being pieced together.
Columbia began its mission from Cape Canaveral on the morning of Thursday 16 January. The lift-off seemed flawless, but the following day NASA engineers who reviewed film of the launch spotted a problem. About 80 seconds into the flight, a briefcase-sized chunk of foam insulation with a mass of just over a kilogram broke away from the shuttle’s giant external fuel tank and collided with Columbia’s left wing, shattering into a…
