PPT is no substitute for hard technical facts. My aging memory tells me that the NASA seniors relied extensively on ppt when trying to decide of the foam strike on the Columbia was of any concern. =left"A Washington Post article (August 30, 2005) on PowerPoint’s influence on Space Shuttle disasters stated;
“Exhibit A in Tufte’s analysis is a PowerPoint slide presented to NASA senior managers in January 2003, while the space shuttle Columbia was in the air and the agency was weighing the risk posed by tile damage on the shuttle wings. Key information was so buried and condensed in the rigid PowerPoint format as to be useless.”“It is easy to understand how a senior manager might read this PowerPoint slide and not realize that it addresses a life-threatening situation,” the Columbia Accident Investigation Board concluded, citing Tufte’s work.