The space shuttle Endeavour was apparently damaged during lift-off from Cape Canaveral yesterday; video showed ice (or something) hitting Endeavor's belly, causing damage to some thermal heat tiles about 58 seconds into the launch.
NASA discovered some kind of gouge in one of the tiles, which is causing no small amount of concern at Mission Control. They may have to do a spacewalk to attempt a repair of the tile. It appears that there's just no way to prevent ice or foam from coming off the external fuel tank or booster rockets during the violent blast-off and atmospheric escape.
Since they can't get rid of this problem, it makes me wonder if every shuttle ever launched has sustained damage like this during take-off?
It took the destruction of the Columbia to make NASA realize how serious this problem is. It doesn't matter what they do to upgrade the rest of the shuttle; if it's pierced by foam, ice or other debris, and they don't detect it, the shuttle is doomed. The loss of the Columbia proved it.
It's a wonder we haven't lost more shuttles.
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