Heated Debates: A History of the Space Shuttle's Thermal Protection System 1970-1981

A documentary on the Columbia disaster, recently aired on British Television, concluded that the accident was the result of "flawed design". In a similar vein to commentary that followed the Challenger disaster in 1986, Nigel Henbest and Heather Couper's documentary located the causes of this "flawed design" and so by implication the accident itself, in the technical compromises that emerged from the political battles between NASA and the Nixon Administration during the 1969 to 1972 period.