A few years ago I had the supreme opportunity to touch a tile and speak with a rocket scientist.

The tiles are suprisingly light and you would be hard pressed to believe that something like that could stand the heat that a reentry produces.

Think of a giant sugar cube that has the consistency of a rigid nylon pot scrubber, but the material is silicon.


You can heat up a tile in a furnace til it glows red hot, after removing the tile from the oven you can pick it up from the corners while is still glows red in the middle. Should you get to see that cilm clip watch! Truly remarkable!

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The Columbia accident was caused by a hole in the leading edge of the wing.

The place where the tile is broken is in an area that will not get as hot as the nose and the leading edges of the wings. Some of the first shuttle missions were flown with whole tiles missing.


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The NASA babe I spoke to was hotter than any ceramic shuttle tile.