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Shuttle Investigation

NPR's Richard Harris reports that NASA is dismissing the theory that the primary cause of the space shuttle Columbia disaster was damage from a piece of foam insulation that broke off and struck the shuttle during liftoff. NASA is instead focusing on overheating inside the left wing during reentry into the Earth's atmosphere and reviewing the last seconds of data from the shuttle.

Copyright 2003 NPR

Award-winning journalist Richard Harris has reported on a wide range of topics in science, medicine and the environment since he joined NPR in 1986. In early 2014, his focus shifted from an emphasis on climate change and the environment to biomedical research.