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CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — NASA is offering up wreckage from the Challenger and Columbia for public view after hiding it from the world for decades.

September 13, 2009 (by Asif Shamim) - An F-16A from the IDFAF crashed in the Southern hills near Hebron on Sunday. The pilot who was killed was the son of the late Israeli astronaut Ilan Ramon, who died in the Space Shuttle Columbia accident in 2003. The pilot Lt. Assaf Ramon, 20, was on his 47th training flight since completing his pilot training in June 2009. The aircraft crashed during a routine flight as part of the advanced pilot training course. IAF commander Maj.-Gen. Ido Nehushtan and the head of the IDF Manpower Division Avi Zamir personally delivered the sad...

An F-16 from the IDFAF crashed in the Southern hills near Hebron. The pilot who was killed was the son of the late Israeli astronaut Ilan Ramon, who died in the Space Shuttle Columbia accident in 2003. he pilot Lt. Assaf Ramon, 20, was on his 47th training flight since completing his pilot training in June 2009. He was flying an unarmed training mission when the accident happened. IAF commander Maj.-Gen. Ido Nehushtan and the head of the IDF Manpower Division Avi Zamir personally delivered the sad news to his mother, Rona Ramon's at there home. The news of the...

Tragedy struck the family of late Israeli astronaut Ilan Ramon again Sunday, when his son Asaf Ramon was killed in a crash while flying an Israel Air Force aircraft. Ilan Ramon, Israel's first astronaut was one of seven crew members killed when the U.S. space shuttle Columbia disintegrated upon re-entry on February 1, 2003. Asaf Ramon's aircraft crashed near the settlement of Bnei Haver, in the rugged terrain of the Hebron Hills. The Israel Defense Forces carried out an aerial and terrestrial search of the area for some 90 minutes before locating the crash site. Advertisement IAF Blackhawk ("Yanshuf") helicopters...

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — Astronauts on the shuttle Columbia were trying to regain control of their craft before it broke apart in 2003, but there was no chance of surviving the accident, a NASA report said on Tuesday. From the crew's perspective, the shift from what appeared to be a normal descent on Feb. 1, 2003, into tragedy happened so fast that the astronauts did not even have time to close the visors on their helmets. Columbia broke apart about 20 kilometres over Texas as it headed for landing at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The cause of the...

Seat restraints, pressure suits and helmets of the doomed crew of the space shuttle Columbia didn't work well, leading to "lethal trauma" as the out-of-control ship lost pressure and broke apart, killing all seven astronauts, a new NASA report says. At least one crew member was alive and pushing buttons for half a minute after a first loud alarm sounded, as he futilely tried to right Columbia during that disastrous day Feb. 1, 2003. In fact, by that time, there was nothing anyone could have done to survive as the fatally damaged shuttle streaked across Texas to a landing in...

Jon Edwards often manages what appears impossible. He has recovered precious data from computers wrecked in floods and fires and dumped in lakes. Now Edwards may have set a new standard: He found information on a melted disk drive that fell from the sky when space shuttle Columbia disintegrated in 2003. "When we got it, it was two hunks of metal stuck together. We couldn't even tell it was a hard drive. It was burned and the edges were melted," said Edwards, an engineer at Kroll Ontrack Inc., outside Minneapolis. "It looked pretty bad at first glance, but we always...

Using data recovered from a damaged computer hard-drive that was aboard the ill-fated Space Shuttle Columbia in 2003, scientists have recently learned more about why the act of shaking a material can quickly transform it into something completely different. One of the best examples of this phenomenon is ordinary ketchup. Shake the bottle and the semi-solid paste becomes a runny liquid. Food scientists do the shaking in a controlled way by putting ketchup (and other processed foods) into a rheometer (rheo, meaning "flow") to see how its viscosity -- the scientific word for stickiness -- decreases when shaken. Robert Berg...

PALMDALE - The tragedy was felt nationwide when the space shuttle Columbia and its seven-astronaut crew were lost five years ago today when the orbiter broke apart during re-entry. The loss was especially acute for the hundreds of people at The Boeing Co.'s site in Palmdale, birthplace of the shuttles and home to their various modifications. From the earliest years of the space shuttle program, the employees of Rockwell International, which later became part of Boeing, have felt a personal connection to the space program and to the astronauts. "I've never seen anything like it. There's just something special about...

STS-2 Mission, 12 November 1981, Florida, USA. Photographer U.S. Navy Captain and NASA Astronaut John W. Young Image Links3000 x 3000 pixels and 1600 x 1600 pixels via http://ChamorroBible.org/gpw/gpw-20050129.htm (photo 14)

NASA plans to change the space shuttle's external fuel tank again, this time removing a troublesome section of protective foam that broke off during the launch of Discovery last July, the space agency said Thursday. The removal of more foam from the tank and further testing to find the root cause of cracks in the foam could lead to a longer delay until the next shuttle flight, tentatively set for May. But NASA official Bill Gerstenmaier, who is leading the investigation into the foam loss, said that's not necessarily the case. The targeted foam section protects a cable tray that...

Thursday, July 28, 2005 9:27 a.m. EDT Shuttle Foam Loss Linked to EPA Regs As recently as last month, NASA had been warned that foam insulation on the space shuttle's external fuel tank could sheer off as it did in the 2003 Columbia disaster - a problem that has plagued space shuttle flights since NASA switched to a non-Freon-based type of foam insulation to comply with Clinton Administration Environmental Protection Agency regulations. "Despite exhaustive work and considerable progress over the past 2-1/2 years, NASA has been unable to eliminate the possibility of dangerous pieces of foam and ice from breaking...

NASAWatch Editor's note: "CNN Headline news is flashing several pictures of NASA Deputy Administrator Fred Gregory standing on the tarmac receiving the bodies of the Columbia crew at Dover Air Force Base in February 2003 and claiming that the photos are of caskets containing war dead arriving home from Iraq in 2004."

Josh will honor the NASA Columbia crew with a performance of his new hit “You Raise Me Up” from his multi-platinum CD “CLOSER” at Super Bowl XXXVIII at Reliant Stadium in Houston, Sunday, Feb. 1. Josh will be accompanied by an 80 person local choir will perform as part of the pre-game show.

Science - AP Impact Test Supports Shuttle Foam Theory2 hours, 41 minutes ago By MARCIA DUNN, AP Aerospace Writer SAN ANTONIO - A pair of space shuttle wing parts cracked and were shoved out of alignment when a chunk of foam slammed into them in a high-speed test, bolstering the theory that the stiff, lightweight insulation brought down Columbia. "We demonstrated for the first time that foam at the speed of the accident can actually break" reinforced carbon wing pieces, said NASA (news - web sites) executive Scott Hubbard, the member of the Columbia Accident Investigation Board in charge of...

Fetus found at shuttle debris search facility 03/07/2003 Associated Press CORSICANA, Texas - Authorities are questioning women helping with the search for space shuttle Columbia debris after what appeared to be a dead newborn baby or fetus was found in a portable toilet at a search command post facility in East Texas Thursday. The area's tight security has led the initial investigation to focus on women who are part of the shuttle search, Corsicana Police Chief G.M. Cox said. The North Central Texas facility has a single-access entry staffed with a sheriff's deputy and local police and personnel are...

Columbia investigators work complex puzzle 03/06/2003 Associated Press HOUSTON - In the first public hearing of the Columbia investigation board, NASA officials defended decisions that gave private contractors much of the direct responsibility for maintaining and operating the space shuttle. Seven members of the board, searching for the cause of the shuttle's breakup, questioned space shuttle program manager Ron Dittemore and Johnson Space Center Director Jefferson Davis Howell about NASA's policies that shifted much of the responsibility for fixing and flying the shuttle to private contractors. Both Howell and Dittemore said safety has not been compromised and remains the...

Amarillo honors Columbia commander 1,000 attend hometown tribute to man who reached for the stars 02/22/2003 Associated Press AMARILLO - Almost 21 years ago, Rick and Evelyn Husband were married here at First Presbyterian Church. Friday, at that same place of worship, a thousand people turned out in a tribute to Col. Husband, commander of the shuttle Columbia. Mrs. Husband, who has rarely made public remarks since the shuttle broke apart Feb. 1 over Texas, killing her husband and six other astronauts, spoke about the love he gave their two children and how much he will be missed. "I...

A storm of particles and radiation from the Sun, a kind of disturbance that has disabled or destroyed satellites on dozens of occasions, crossed the path of the space shuttle Columbia just as it was making its descent to Earth, scientists said yesterday. The disturbance was detected by at least two NASA space probes as it passed from deep space toward Earth on Feb. 1, said Dr. Devrie S. Intriligator, director of the space plasma laboratory at the Carmel Research Center, a private laboratory in Santa Monica, Calif., who discovered the event by examining data from the probes. Experts...

Left wing fragment could be key discovery Columbia investigators sort pieces of the puzzle 02/11/2003 By JIM MORRIS / The Dallas Morning News WASHINGTON - In perhaps the most significant development since Columbia disintegrated Feb. 1 over Texas, NASA confirmed Monday that it has found and is examining a piece of the shuttle's left wing. Michael C. Kostelnik, a NASA deputy associate administrator, said the 1 ½-foot wing fragment was discovered last week near Corsicana and had been taken to Barksdale Air Force Base near Shreveport, La. The section - which includes a 2-foot piece of carbon-composite panel, the...