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<p>NASA officials said Friday they have asked experts in upper-atmosphere electric phenomena whether it is possible for such effects to occur at the altitude and weather conditions that the shuttle was flying through before it disintegrated.</p> <p>But they said that so far they have found nothing in their investigation to indicate that the shuttle encountered such phenomena on re-entry. "There is nothing in the data stream . . . that would cause any concern on our part," said Ron Dittemore, NASA's shuttle program manager.</p>

<p>SAN JOSE, Calif.(AP) - The space shuttle Columbia broke up in a mysterious area of the upper atmosphere once so little understood and difficult to study that scientists dubbed it the "ignorosphere."</p> <p>On Friday, NASA said it has asked outside atmospheric scientists for their opinion on whether some sort of electrical discharge could have occurred as the shuttle screamed toward touchdown at Kennedy Space Center in Florida.</p>

MATTHEW FORDAHL, Associated Press WriterFriday, February 7, 2003 ©2003 Associated Press URL: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/news/archive/2003/02/07/state1114EST0040.DTL (02-07) 08:14 PST SAN FRANCISCO (AP) -- Federal scientists are investigating whether electricity or some other little-understood phenomena in the upper atmosphere might have doomed the space shuttle Columbia. Investigators also are reviewing data recorded by a network of instruments that might have detected a faint thunderclap at the same time a purplish bolt of lightning may have struck the shuttle high above Earth, the San Francisco Chronicle reported. Researchers at NASA's Kennedy Space Center raised concerns in a report last year that electromagnetic phenomena or ice...

<p>Federal scientists are looking for evidence that a bolt of electricity in the upper atmosphere might have doomed the space shuttle Columbia as it streaked over California, The Chronicle has learned.</p> <p>Investigators are combing records from a network of ultra-sensitive instruments that might have detected a faint thunderclap in the upper atmosphere at the same time a photograph taken by a San Francisco astronomer appears to show a purplish bolt of lightning striking the shuttle.</p>

www.holoscience.com.au©Copyright HOLOSCIENCE 2000 &nbsp; HOLOSCIENCE The Science of the New Millenium NEWS ITEM 29 January 2002 &nbsp; The Balloon goes up over lightning! was sent aloft to ride far above the great storms of the mid-west USA. Researchers had sent the balloon, like a Dark Rider out of Tolkien, riding into the moonless night, seeking sprites, gnomes and the ring of the elves. &lt;&lt; Gnomes, sprites and elves stretch into space above powerful thunderstorms. Their fanciful names may reflect the fact that airline pilots reported them but for many years no one would believe them. C.T.R. Wilson 1927 Surprisingly, ...