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A piece of the ill-fated space shuttle Columbia has surfaced in eastern Texas, where a severe drought has dried up a lake and exposed debris from the 2003 accident, NASA said Tuesday. The globe-shaped object that turned up in Lake Nacogdoches, north of Houston, was one of 18 tanks on Columbia that helped power the shuttle, said NASA spokeswoman Lisa Malone. Member of NASA's Columbia Reconstruction Team is pictured at the Kennedy Space Center in 2003 "Late last week, we were contacted by the Nacogdoches sheriff's office letting us know that they had found an item of what they thought...

April 22, 2003 3,000 Amateurs Offer NASA Photos of Columbia's Demise Associated PressContrails from the Columbia are seen in a video image taken by two Dutch military pilots training at Fort Hood, Tex., on Feb. 1. This widely circulated image, purported to be of the shuttle Columbia, is actually from the 1998 movie "Armageddon." By JOHN SCHWARTZ OUSTON, April 19 - Dan McNew thought he had shot the home movie of a lifetime. He had aimed his digital video camera at the shuttle Columbia as it returned to earth on Feb. 1; living near Dallas, in the path of...

Date: Sat, 29 Mar 2003 10:24:29 -0800 From: Jim Warren Subject: Autodesk's founder reports gross errors by Limbaugh, CNN, Snopes Cc: [Snopes and a whole bunch of CNN circular file email addresses; Mr. Warren doesn't seem to know the news biz very well --DMTW] [If you know John, you know him to be a most ardent stickler for facts. Here, John is not reporting hearsay; he's reporting about what's happened on his own server, and images he provides thereon. --jim] At 12:34 AM +0100 3/29/03, John Walker wrote: Subject: Sniping at Snopes.comAlmost everybody's experienced the phenomenon of encountering a description...

Respond to this Article April 1980 Beam Me Out Of This Death Trap, Scotty 5 ... 4 ... 3 ... 2 ... 1 ... Goodbye, Columbia By Gregg Easterbrook This April 1980 Washington Monthly cover story on the problems and progress of NASA's space shuttle program was written one year before Columbia's first launch in 1981. To view a larger image of the original cover, click here. The most expensive flying machine ever constructed sputtered and smacked through the low waves, kicking up spray, straining mightily to take flight. It had been bobbing by the dock in Long Beach...

Developing. Watch MSNBC for latest. Internal memo shows some engineers believe there was up to a 7 1/2-inch gash from the foam breakoff at launch. Memo was serious enough to go out to all NASA centers two days before disaster.

<p>All Americans today are thinking . . . of the families of these men and women who have been given this sudden shock and grief. You're not alone. Our entire nation grieves with you. And those you loved will always have the respect and gratitude of this country. . . .</p>

<p>Even with its shuttles grounded, NASA can easily retrieve the astronauts aboard the international space station using Russian vehicles.</p> <p>A Soyuz vehicle attached to the space station could bring the three astronauts onboard back to Earth at a moment's notice. But if the space agency's remaining shuttles are out of service for an extended period in the wake of Saturday's catastrophe, as seems likely, it could prove difficult to maintain the station's operations.</p>

Space Shuttle Columbia is in a decent for the Kennedy Space Center in Florida and will pass over the San Francisco Area around 6:00 AM Pacific Time. Route will take the Shuttle over Las Vegas, Flagstaff, etc. NASA has still not decided which runway will be used. Landing will be at 9:16 AM Eastern.

High Flight Oh, I have slipped the surly bonds of earth And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings; Sunward I've climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth Of sun-split clouds -- and done a hundred things You have not dreamed of -- wheeled and soared and swung High in the sunlit silence. Hovering there, I've chased the shouting wind along, and flung My eager craft through footless halls of air. Up, up the long, delirious, burning blue I've topped the windswept heights with easy grace Where never lark, or even eagle flew. And, while with silent, lifting mind I've trod The...