HOUSTON -- Columbia investigators are looking for help from experts who track meteors entering Earth's atmosphere so they can better predict where in the California mountains a potentially telling piece of debris from the doomed shuttle might have landed.
NASA officials are interested in finding the material because it could help pinpoint what part of Columbia's heat shield failed first and allowed superhot plasma to flow into the spacecraft. It is belived this eventually led to the break up of the vehicle and loss of seven astronauts.
So far there has been no luck locating any confirmed pieces of debris west of Texas despite hundreds of reports, NASA officials said Tuesday.
But in the Sierra Nevada mountains of California there is strong hope that one or two larger pieces of debris, perhaps a reinforced carbon-carbon (RCC) panel from the leading edge of Columbia's left wing, might be sitting among the trees.
Several eyewitnesses in the area saw Columbia fly overhead on Feb. 1 and saw one or two large pieces fall in flames away from the vehicle, followed by several relatively tiny pieces of debris.
A few moments later, residents throughout the mountain range heard sonic booms and strong rumbling noises much like thunder, said Doug Kohl, a former shuttle engineer who now lives among the Sierra Nevada mountains.
As the local space shuttle expert, Kohl has been in constant contact with the NASA debris team in an effort to pin down where the material might have landed. As part of that effort, Kohl said NASA was seeking the advice of meteor experts.
While Columbia was still too high to be heard as it flew overhead, pieces falling from the vehicle could have made those sounds, which would be similar to the sound a small meteor makes as it entered the atmosphere.
By combining all the visual sightings and audio descriptions, which varied depending on what side of what mountain a person was on, it is hoped that meteor tracking experts will be able to plot the debris' impact point.
"NASA is in the process of funding a meteor expert to give an estimate of the trajectory of the falling debris and determine if the height and velocity of Columbia was sufficient to have cleared the Sierra Range," Kohl said.
NASA spokesman John Ira Petty at the Johnson Space Center could not confirm whether NASA or the Columbia Accident Investigation Board (CAIB) was seeking the help of any meteor experts in California.
The independent board, led by retired Navy Admiral Harold Gehman, is overseeing the inquiry into the Columbia incident. On Saturday, former Air Force Secretary Sheila E. Widnall joined the CAIB, becoming the first woman on the panel.
Gehman Jr., confirmed Widnall's appointment as board members left NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center for Louisiana to tour the Lockheed Martin factory that makes the shuttle's external fuel tanks.
advertisement
