On February 1, 2003, the space shuttle Columbia broke apart, and all seven astronauts died. The technical cause was a piece of insulating foam, about 1.7 pounds, that broke off the external tank.
The investigation board released its report on August 26, 2003. It wrote that “the Board was surprised to receive similar presentation slides from NASA officials in place of technical reports.” It called “the endemic use of PowerPoint briefing slides instead of technical papers” an illustration of “the problematic methods of technical communication at NASA.”