NASA's first Space Shuttle launch lost 16 heat shield tiles and damaged 148 more before it even left the ground, not from any failure, but from the shock wave of its own engines bouncing back off the

The Space Shuttle's greatest threat didn't come from the vacuum of space—it came from the ground beneath it.

On 12 April 1981, the Space Shuttle Columbia lifted off on its very first flight, and by the time it landed two days later, engineers found sixteen thermal protection tiles missing from its underside and another 148 damaged . Nothing had gone wrong with the engines, the boosters, or the flight itself. The damage had happened in the first few seconds, before Columbia had even cleared the tower, and the cause turned out to be the shockwave from its own ignition, reflecting straight back off the launch pad and into the vehicle.