The 1.67-pound piece of fuel tank foam insulation shot out of a
35-foot nitrogen-pressurized gun and slammed into a carbon-reinforced
panel removed from shuttle Atlantis.

/me gets an image flash of all remaining shuttles being blown to pieces by
the CAIB investigators... "look, if you punch it here, it breaks too!"

I didn't realize they were stripping the existing fleet to perform these
tests. Couldn't they take spare parts for this, or produce test samples?


Steven