The sad fate of the Columbia crew

On February 1, 2003, the Space Shuttle Columbia re-entered Earth's atmosphere after an otherwise routine mission. When the Shuttle launched a few days earlier, a half-kilo piece of insulating foam on the external fuel tank had broken off during launch and slammed into the port wing at 900 kilometers per hour. No damage was seen on video taken from the ground, and NASA assumed nothing had happened. However, what they couldn't see was that the piece of foam had punched a hole in the wing itself. When Columbia entered the atmosphere, gas at plasma temperatures entered the hole, ate through the support structure, and the wing essentially broke apart. The Shuttle destabilized and was lost, along with her crew.