[haunter]

What about an air gun pellet? Surely they are small enough (.177)

On the other hand they might be too small to penetrate the thick rubber.

[hindsightbias]

Now you’re thinking like a real rsearcher:

“NASA Develops New Caliber Bullet And Design For Penetrating Shuttle Tires For $50M”

“NASA Awards $50M Contract For Remington To Develop New Rifle For Shuttle Tire Woes”

“NASA Awards $10M Contract For Gun Range”

[Max-q]

But why, they already found a perfectly good method