The recommendations made by space shuttle Columbia's accident investigators following the 2003 incident that killed seven astronauts did not force NASA to confront the “foam debris†problem head-on, the Los Angeles Times reports. The board, according to the Times, told the space agency to "initiate" a program to eliminate foam debris and "initiate" a program to strengthen the orbiter's thermal protection system, but it did not make NASA adopt a 100 percent fix to either system.
On Tuesday large pieces of foam fell off the shuttle Discovery's external fuel tank during launch, causing the agency to essentially ground the shuttle program for the immediate future.