Word: brittlest
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...well. All four orbiters were temporarily grounded last June when cracks were found in their liquid-hydrogen fuel lines, damage that may have been caused by vibration, temperature changes or other stressors accumulated over repeated flights. Columbia, as the granddad of all the ships, could have been the brittlest of the fleet. But NASA, for all its alleged shortcomings, leaves little to chance in the regular physicals it gives its shuttles, and the fact that these tiny cracks were found in fuel lines makes it all the less likely that larger, lethal cracks could have gone unnoticed. A fuel explosion...
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