THE computer model used to assess tile damage on the space shuttle Columbia was entirely inadequate, it emerged last week. “It’s not really a computational model at all,” says Hal Gehmann, the retired admiral who is leading the accident investigation. “It’s essentially an Excel spreadsheet.”
NASA used the software to determine that the shuttle could not have been seriously damaged when it was hit by a suitcase-sized chunk of foam that fell from the external fuel tank 82 seconds after lift-0ff. Wing damage from this impact is now thought to have led to the loss of the orbiter on 1…
