Wednesday, February 5, 2003
Rangers comb Seashore for debris from Columbia´s liftoff
By MARK I. JOHNSON
NEWS-JOURNAL STAFF WRITER
NEW SMYRNA BEACH — Rangers searched 26 miles of Canaveral National Seashore beaches Tuesday looking for debris that may have fallen from the doomed space shuttle Columbia during lift-off.
Nothing was found.
Kennedy Space Center spokesman George Diller said the search was prompted by a space center security officer who informally made the request. The request did not come from NASA.
“The search is not part of our investigation,” Diller said.
Launch crews routinely inspect the pad and surrounding beaches the day after a launch for debris from the spacecraft, he said.
“We did that this time and did not find anything,” Diller said.
Investigators have zeroed in on a piece of foam insulation that fell from the shuttle´s large external fuel tank, possibly damaging its heat tiles and causing the craft to break up during re-entry into the atmosphere Saturday.
Diller said Kennedy officials are talking about developing a search plan that would use the angle of launch and weight of the materials to determine where debris might have landed after the Jan. 16 liftoff.
Canaveral Chief Ranger Tim Morgan said two rangers on all-terrain vehicles checked the north end and south ends of Canaveral National Seashore on Tuesday and found a piece of insulation similar to that from the fuel tank, but it is believed to have come from a boat.
Playalinda Beach, at the south end of the Seashore in Brevard County, has been closed since Saturday in tribute to the seven Columbia astronauts who died when the craft broke up over Texas, Morgan said. It is expected to reopen at 8 a.m. today.
The northern 13 miles of the Seashore, south of New Smyrna Beach, has remained open.
Morgan said it is unusual for NASA to ask rangers to look for possible shuttle debris and, other than after the Challenger disaster in 1986, he believes nothing has ever washed ashore.
However, rangers routinely patrol the area.
“There are four-wheelers on the beach almost every day,” he said.
Kennedy Space Center officials said Tuesday if anyone finds anything they believe may have come from space shuttle Columbia, they should stay away from it, immediately contact local law enforcement and call the emergency operations center at Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas: (281) 483-3388.
Staff Writer Sandra Frederick and the Associated Press contributed to this report.
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