Space Shuttle thermal protection system
On February 1, 2003, the Space Shuttle "Columbia" was destroyed on reentry due to a failure of the TPS. The investigation team found and reported that the probable cause of the accident was that during launch, a piece of foam debris punctured an RCC panel on the left wing's leading edge and allowed hot gases from the reentry to enter the wing and disintegrate the wing from within, leading to eventual loss of control and breakup of the shuttle.
Reconstruction era
The Dunning School of scholars were trained at the history department of Columbia University under Professor William A. Dunning analyzed Reconstruction as a failure after 1866 for different reasons. They claimed that Congress took freedoms and rights from qualified whites and gave them to unqualified blacks who were being duped by corrupt "carpetbaggers and scalawags." As T. Harry Williams (who was a sharp critic of the Dunning school) notes, the Dunningites portrayed the era in stark terms: