Reading analysis[0] of the damage caused by a foam strike on STS-119 makes the loss of Columbia feel more "on NASA" to me than not. NASA knew a foam strike coul

Reading analysis[0] of the damage caused by a foam strike on STS-119 makes the loss of Columbia feel more "on NASA" to me than not. NASA knew a foam strike could be catastrophic and that the odds of a bad strike weren't astronomically remote. It had already happened on STS-119 and only luck prevented loss of the vehicle. I didn't have that take initially, but the Causality podcast did an episode[1] on it a few years ago that got me into reading more about it. [0] https://spaceflightnow.com/shuttle/sts119/090327sts27/ https://spaceflightnow.com/shuttle/sts119/090327sts27/ [1] https://engineered.network/causality/episode-24-columbia/ https://engineered.network/causality/episode-24-columbia/