This article by Gregg Easterbrook was published in 1980:
The external fuel tank, for instance, is full of oxygen and hydrogen cooled to -400°F to make the gases flow as liquids. Ice will form on the tank. When Columbia's tiles started popping off in a stiff breeze, it occurred to engineers that ice chunks from the tank would crash into the tiles during the sonic chaos of launch: Goodbye, Columbia. So insulation was added to the tank.
Oops.
Oh, and a classic `they're not like us' moment from an article in The Times:
Officials from Nasa arrived on Saturday night to retrieve the helmet, which Mr Couch had guarded throughout the day. ``We had about 300 people come up here to look and I was told by the sheriff not to let anyone touch it, see. So I guarded it. But everyone was well behaved. I didn't have to get my gun.''