Chapter 1

The presentation that tried to save lives

“The single biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has taken place.”

George Bernard Shaw

On 16 January 2003 the Space Shuttle Columbia was launched from the Kennedy Space Center. There were seven astronauts on board.

Eighty-two seconds after the shuttle launched, an incident occurred. What happened was a piece of debris from the shuttle broke off during the launch and hit the wing. This type of incident is called a foam strike.

Foam strikes are very common and happen during nearly all shuttle launches; however, in the case of the launch of the Space Shuttle Columbia the engineers at NASA, having watched a playback of the launch, believed this foam strike was out of the ...

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