81.7 seconds after launch from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida on January 16, 2003, a dinner-plate sized piece of insulating foam tore off the space shuttle Columbia’s orange external tank and impacted the leading edge of the orbiter’s left wing at a relative velocity of 545 miles per hour. The energy from the impact was enough to shatter the orbiter’s thermal protection system – damage that would later allow super-heated atmospheric gases to penetrate the vehicle during reentry. The entire sequence wa