WOW!!

The external fuel tanks for the space shuttle are assembled by Lockheed Martin down here in New Orleans.

On the way home from work I was listening to the am talk radio station when several former Lockheed employees called up to explain WHY this foam insulation on the external fuel tank is constantly falling off and causing damage to heat shield tiles on the shuttle.

These guys claim that, back in 1997, NASA was forced to "go green" by the Clinton Administration. Several of these callers blamed Al Gore for it - but essentially NASA had to "switch" to a non-freon based foam formula for the insulation on the external tanks. Apparently, according to these callers - that foam has had problems adhering to the external tank since day one.

I found these claims hard to believe so, when I got home, I did an Internet search and found this ...

Shuttle Foam Loss Linked to EPA Regs ...

According to this article, NASA has known for years that this new "green" foam causes up to eleven times more damage to heat shield tiles than the old, freon-based foam formula.

The article quotes an engineer who says that, using the old freon-based formula - shuttles would return from missions with damage to about 40 of it's 26,000 ceramic tiles.

However, after the shift to the new "green" foam in 1997 - many more damaged tiles were noted. Specifically, the report cites 308 damaged tiles to COLUMBIA after she returned from a space mission in 1997. Additionally 132 of those "hits" were greater than one inch in diameter. The engineer called this "significant" damage.

If we knew about this problem back in 1997 - why didn't someone at NASA stand up and tell folks - to heck with political correctness - we need to protect our shuttle crews - we need to use foam that adheres to what it's stuck to!

If this report is true - it means that the loss of COLUMBIA - with all her crew - can possibly be indirectly attributed to NASA's insistence to use the non-freon based "green" foam.

And, even in light of the loss of COLUMBIA - NASA still refused to go back to the freon-based foam - and launched DISCOVERY and her entire crew this week using a foam formula that they knew they had problems with???

Folks, I don't know what the truth here is but - NASA OWES SOME ANSWERS NOW!

They need to get someone out there answering these allegations. I, for one, want to know if this is really true!