Michael Leinbach - Bringing Columbia Home - The Untold Story of a Lost Space Shuttle and Her Crew

One of the most important lessons learned from the debris recovery operation was the need to have an agreed format for databases to use in all-incident emergencies. [20] Interviews with Dave Whittle, Ed Mango, Jim Wetherbee; ESRI, “Recovery Enhanced with GIS”; NASA Accident Investigation Team Final Report , 60.

At our request, the Texas Department of Public Safety issued guidelines on February 5 for how first responders should deal with shuttle debris. Private citizens were told not to pick up any debris, even though much of it was likely not hazardous. First responders needed to be aware of dangers that included: stored energy (high-pressure tanks and cylinders); monomethyl hydrazine, nitrogen tetroxide, and ammonia; pyrotechnic devices (anything marked yellow/black near window frames, landing gear, crew seats, hatches, and antennae); and biological material. [21] Greg Cohrs email to Jonathan Ward. Cohrs noted that one day later in the search, a military ordnance disposal team “cleared” one item in the field as nonexplosive, which the search team interpreted as meaning “safe.” Cohrs said, “It was actually high-pressure, and we were at risk moving it by hand and vehicle to the collection center, as was pointed out when I delivered it. It was later depressurized on a shooting range. We made our personnel aware of that type of hazard.”

Responders were ordered to stay with anything marked SECRET, CONFIDENTIAL, or SSOR (space-to-space orbiter radio) until someone from NASA arrived on the scene to collect it personally. [22] FEMA, “Substantial New Resources Committed to Expedite Search and Collection Effort for Columbia Material,” news release HQ-03-036, February 5, 2003; FEMA, “Columbia Material Collection Guidelines: Fact Sheet,” news release HQ-03-036a, February 5, 2003. Shuttle radios used classified, military-grade communications security technology to prevent unauthorized access.

NASA requested that FEMA alert the residents of seven rural counties in Texas west of Fort Worth to be on the lookout for possible scattered shuttle material. Data analysis suggested that shuttle debris might have fallen farther west than we previously thought. [23] FEMA, “Seven West Texas Counties Alerted of Possible Scattered Shuttle Material,” news release 3171-12, February 6, 2003. We continued to refine the expected debris path using NASA’s ground track for the shuttle above eighty thousand feet and Department of Defense radar data below eighty thousand feet.

The FBI said they were investigating approximately twenty reported thefts of shuttle wreckage. They were also looking into seventeen Internet auctions of what people claimed to be pieces of Columbia . Officials suspected that souvenir hunters illegally collected over one hundred pieces of the shuttle. [24] Five Texas residents were charged with stealing debris from the shuttle. None ever served time for the thefts. Jeffrey Gettleman, “Loss of the Shuttle: Recovery Efforts; U.S. Charges 2 in Shuttle Debris Theft, Citing Need to ‘Make an Example,’” New York Times , February 6, 2003; Matt Lait, “2 Texans Charged With Stealing Wreckage,” Los Angeles Times , February 6, 2003, articles.latimes.com/2003/feb/06/nation/na-debris6 ; Jennifer Vose, “Punishments Vary for Debris Thieves,” Daily Sentinel (Nacogdoches, TX), August 2, 2003; “Officer Cleared in Shuttle Debris Theft,” Chicago Tribune , June 8, 2003, articles.chicagotribune.com/2003-06-08/news/0306080104_1_debris-stealing-shuttle ; NASA Office of Inspector General press release, June 25, 2003.

The US Attorneys Office announced a limited prosecution moratorium—until Friday, February 7, at five o’clock—for people who voluntarily turned in shuttle debris. Other callers returned items that they had picked up but did not initially turn over for fear of being accused of tampering with evidence.

Interestingly, after the moratorium was announced for Columbia debris, NASA received a few calls asking if the moratorium also applied to material from the Challenger accident seventeen years earlier. NASA said yes—and several pieces of Challenger ’s wreckage were then turned in. [25] Shafer and LeConey, “Legal Issues,” 64.

By February 5, Humanities Undergraduate Environmental Sciences (HUES) and Forest Resources Institute labs at Stephen F. Austin State University in Nacogdoches were printing more than one thousand search maps every day. The university also fielded nearly seventy search teams, with almost two hundred people working to locate shuttle debris. Their state-of-the-art GPS equipment and processing software allowed debris locations to be tagged within an accuracy of three feet. Recovery leaders were so impressed with the capability that they installed a high-speed data line between the university and the command center so that the maps could be printed in Lufkin. [26] ESRI, “Recovery Enhanced with GIS.”

After every evening’s briefing for the Lufkin command staff, the Forest Resources Institute printed out geodetic maps for the next day’s search area. The maps showed the search objectives printed on aerial and satellite photographs of the area two miles on either side of the centerline computed by Jerry Ross and John Grunsfeld. Then the ground bosses delivered the maps to each of the forward search centers.

Translating the maps into action entailed briefing the county judges about the designated search locations, planning the logistics for deploying the searchers to the field, and notifying landowners in the search path. Search team leaders needed to know if there were territorial bulls in pastures that they would be crossing.

The day’s other good news came in the form of a plane from Kennedy that arrived at Barksdale at eleven o’clock. It brought us another sixty staff to assist in the debris recovery and processing effort.

On Thursday, February 6, at our morning meeting in Barksdale, we first heard about the “Day 2 object” (described in chapter 3). It was intriguing—and disturbing—to learn something had been in orbit with Columbia early in its mission.

With the NTSB’s guidance, NASA’s internal accident investigation was taking two independent tracks. The data team in Houston concentrated on the telemetry and other data from the shuttle to determine the failure sequence. Our debris team would examine the physical evidence of how the shuttle likely came apart. Each team would develop their conclusions independently. If the two sets of conclusions matched, then NASA could be certain that it understood the cause of the accident.

We discussed the authority of the Columbia Accident Investigation Board and how our internal teams would interact with them. We agreed that Kennedy would receive all structural hardware first. Selected items could be sent to labs afterward with joint approval of our KSC team and the CAIB. Memory devices, tapes, and films were to go directly to the data team in Houston for analysis.

Representatives from our team had visited fifteen sites in California and found no credible shuttle debris there. A resident of the Yosemite/Tahoe area had heard twin sonic booms and found what he thought was a piece of tile from the shuttle. (It turned out to be a Styrofoam cooler.) However, a sheriff’s department found what appeared to be a piece of tile with black specks, which needed closer examination. We sent another team to the Phoenix area to investigate possible debris sightings. [27] NASA’s Lamar Russell took on the task of supporting the searches in the western states. He published a diary of his experiences: The Silence and the Salvage (Mustang, OK: Tate Publishing, 2013).