"WASHINGTON -- A NASA engineer weighed the possibility of a "catastrophic" failure resulting from extreme heat on the shuttle Columbia's tires despite assurances days earlier that possible damage to insulating tiles near the landing gear wouldn't imperil the crew."

This is more fairly inaccurate and sensational reporting relating to the evidence that is coming out about Columbia. It surprises me that the Chronicle, which has some of the best space reporting in the business, would view this email in such light. They wait until the middle of the article to point out that "Daugherty acknowledged his concerns were 'over the top in many ways,'" which he does at the beginning of his email. Fortunately, they link to the actual document from the article, which allows us all to see the way the engineers were discussing these issues.

I'd like to point out that Daugherty is concerned about an explosion or overpressurization of the tires, and hence the wheel well itself. Just going on the data that NASA has released, particularly the Flight Director's comm loop recording, they weren't seeing any indication that this is what was happening. It IS possible that the overpressure scenario could have happened after all data was lost, but IMO that's not consistent with the evidence either. We'll see...

HoustonChronicle.com - Engineer warned of possible wheel well failure