- CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida (Reuters)
- Hundreds of searchers combed an area in east Texas on Thursday for a
top-secret object from the doomed shuttle Columbia while Vice President
Dick Cheney
- As it began to consider whether meteorites or even space
junk played a role in the disintegration of the shuttle over Texas on Saturday,
NASA took steps to ensure that the investigation into the disaster would
follow the evidence wherever it led.
-
- In and around the tiny Texas town of Bronson, near the
Louisiana border, hundreds of National Guardsmen, federal agents, state
troopers and volunteers searched for a mystery object from the shuttle.
-
- They searched block by block and used machetes to hack
their way through thick woods that surround the town. The searchers were
given a picture of a faceplate from the device, which said "Secret
Government Property" in white letters on a black background.
-
- The Houston Chronicle on Thursday reported that the object
was a communications device that handled encrypted messages between the
shuttle and the ground. It said the device was in a government "telecommunications
security" category that normally allowed handling only under the tightest
of restrictions.
-
- There was no indication why the Bronson district had
been made the focus of the search.
-
- Texas state troopers stood guard over the operation and
told photographers to keep their distance. They said they would be asked
to leave the area if searchers found something they did not want photographed.
-
- NASA expanded the power of the Space Shuttle Mishap Interagency
Investigation Board, chaired by retired Navy Admiral Harold Gehman.
-
- A day after NASA backed away from a leading theory about
the cause of the crash, saying foam debris from the external fuel tank
that struck the orbiter soon after liftoff was unlikely to have caused
the disaster, shuttle officials said the board was taking over the investigation
and that the foam would remain under consideration.
-
- "We do not want to rule out any theory, any approach,
any possible set of factors ... That is a determination that the Columbia
accident investigation board will render," NASA Administrator Sean
O'Keefe told reporters.
-
- O'Keefe said the investigation board would be able to
add new members at its discretion. Editorials, op-ed pages and television
commentators have all questioned the independence of the investigation.
-
- In Texas, Nacogdoches County Sheriff Thomas Kerss said
the rain had made it difficult for heavy equipment and vehicles to cross
wooded areas and pasture land to collect debris.
-
- Tens of thousands of pieces of the shuttle rained down
on east Texas and Louisiana when the shuttle disintegrated.
-
- "Each and every part of the shuttle is an important
piece in trying to help NASA solve this mystery as to what occurred,"
Kerss told a news conference.
-
- At a Washington memorial service, Cheney praised the
astronauts. "They were soldiers and scientists, doctors and pilots.
But above all, they were explorers," he said.
-
- Cheney stressed the Bush administration's commitment
to return the now-grounded shuttle fleet to flight, to honor the Columbia
crew's memory and their passion for exploration.
-
- "While many memorials will be built to honor Columbia's
crew, their greatest memorial will be a vibrant space program with new
missions carried out by a new generation of brave explorers," Cheney
said.
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