What caused the Space Shuttle Columbia Disaster?
Security was tight at launch and no indication of sabotage. Initial speculation was the vertical tail fin broke apart. The reason for the break up: it seems the left wing was hit by a piece of foam from the Space Shuttle External Tank (ET) during launch. At the time of the launch it was judged that event did not represent safety concern. Nasa did not request help in trying to observe the damaged area with ground telescopes or satellites, in part because it did not believe the pictures would be useful, whereas, on the first space shuttle launch in 1981, Columbia lost a few tiles and Nasa had requested the use of ground telescopes and satellites. Even if they did find damage, there was nothing the crew could have done to fix it. There was no way they could carry work in space, hence the Shuttle was doomed from launch. They could not fly to the International Space Station (ISS) because they would have been in the wrong orbit. They would have been stuck in space. Due to the loss of Space S
