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Author
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Topic: Challenger and Columbia unrecovered debris
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Fezman92
Member Posts: 1031
From: New Jersey, USA
Registered: Mar 2010
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posted 07-17-2011 04:30 PM
   
What are the chances that there is still Columbia debris still out there, scattered throughout Texas that no one has found (or they did find it and are keeping it)? |
saturn1b
Member Posts: 159
From: Westcliffe, CO
Registered: Jun 2006
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posted 07-17-2011 05:13 PM
I'm guessing that the chances are pretty good that there are quite a few pieces still undiscovered as well as some in private hands. Any other thoughts from anyone? |
JFS61
Member Posts: 101
From: Bryan, Texas USA
Registered: Jun 2005
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posted 07-17-2011 05:36 PM
The odds that a large amount of debris would still remain undiscovered in the East Texas-Louisiana area are quite high, as it is a heavily wooded and sparsely populated rural area. Debris would have become easily and quickly lost in the thick and fast growing vegetation, not to mention any pieces that might have fallen into stock ponds or creeks.I for one didn't envy any of those having to search for the debris - They were quite literally looking for needles in the proverbial haystack. In fact, I surprised that they were able to find as much as they did. |
Robert Pearlman
Editor Posts: 42981
From: Houston, TX
Registered: Nov 1999
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posted 07-17-2011 05:42 PM
The Texas neighborhoods where a lot of the debris fell exerted a good deal of public pressure, scorning any attempt to save any souvenirs. To this day, they take a great deal of pride in the role they served in the recovery efforts, and continue to turn over found pieces to NASA.That's not to say that there aren't maybe some pieces being squirreled away, but should they ever see the light of day in or around these towns, the owners will be in for a rude awakening. As mentioned, there is little doubt there is debris buried in the thick forest and/or marsh lands. If I recall correctly, only two of the main engine powerheads were recovered, one being the easternmost-recovered pieces of debris from Columbia. I believe both were found in Louisiana, where the third is probably buried as well. |
Jay Chladek
Member Posts: 2272
From: Bellevue, NE, USA
Registered: Aug 2007
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posted 07-18-2011 10:49 AM
I visited Hemphil, TX in April on my way home from Houston and checked out the Remembering Columbia museum (which I highly recommend by the way). I asked that very question. According to the person I talked to, a neighbor of hers was getting ready to sell his house about three years ago and was having some repairs done to it (including a leaky roof). He went into the attic to move some boxes when he noticed one box of pictures had a hole in it, he moved the box and noticed a hole in the floorboards, then looked up and tracked back to a hole in the ceiling he could see daylight through. In the hole in the floorboards was a bolt. He called NASA and they recovered the bolt, which indeed came from Columbia. The woods in that part of Texas are so dense I wouldn't recommend treasure hunting at all. It is due to the very methodical approach of the US Forestry Service and volunteers that they managed to recover what they did. They literally did a grid search at arms length from one another and walked through some of the densest woods I have ever seen (and I wanted to see it for myself, which is why I went there). They would stop the line when a piece of debris was found, tagged it, marked the GPS coordinates and either recovered it or left it for a followup team to recover (depending on the size). Indeed Sabine county is also proud that their residents turned what they recovered in while some counties to the west had people who were not quite as honorable. There are indeed good people still out there in the world. |
LM-12
Member Posts: 3207
From: Ontario, Canada
Registered: Oct 2010
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posted 08-02-2011 03:27 PM
What percentage of Columbia has been recovered to date, and how does that compare to the Challenger recovery efforts? |
Robert Pearlman
Editor Posts: 42981
From: Houston, TX
Registered: Nov 1999
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posted 08-02-2011 03:43 PM
From Drought exposes debris from space shuttle Columbia in Texas: To date, about 38-40 percent of Columbia and its payload has been recovered. The remainder either disintegrated as it reentered or is still where it landed across Texas and in Louisiana. And from our January 2011 article about Challenger and Columbia debris: In what the U.S. Coast Guard categorized at the time as its "largest surface search in which they had participated," about 120 tons of Challenger wreckage were raised off the floor of the Atlantic Ocean. The retrieval accounted for 30 percent of Challenger's total structure, including about 75 percent of its crew cabin and surrounding fuselage. |
LM-12
Member Posts: 3207
From: Ontario, Canada
Registered: Oct 2010
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posted 08-02-2011 06:00 PM
Thanks for those links Robert. I gather from the Smithsonian article that the Columbia investigation was the more difficult of the two because the break-up happened at entry interface and is less fully-understood. |
Mike_The_First
Member Posts: 436
From: USA
Registered: Jun 2014
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posted 09-06-2017 03:31 AM
Do we know at this point how much debris from the shuttle accidents is still unaccounted for, due either to not being found yet or being collected and not surrendered?Edit: Answered on merge. Editor's note: Threads merged. |
p51
Member Posts: 1642
From: Olympia, WA
Registered: Sep 2011
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posted 09-06-2017 10:26 AM
That's also not taking into account the debris that fell that nobody realized it was anything but junk that wasn't from space. There are a lot of abandoned fridges and cars in backyards in Texas, and it'd be easy for a chunk of Columbia to have landed in the midst of that and the owner wouldn't have a clue where it had come from... |
Robert Pearlman
Editor Posts: 42981
From: Houston, TX
Registered: Nov 1999
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posted 09-06-2017 11:01 AM
There was a strong interest and desire by the populations living under Columbia's debris field to help in the recovery. As is documented in the upcoming book, "Bringing Columbia Home" by Michael Leinbach and Jonathan Ward, there was a concerted effort to make sure the debris was found and returned to NASA.No doubt there are pieces buried in areas that are rarely visited by people, under marshes and deep within the woods, but I doubt there are any significant remnants still sitting exposed in backyards. |
ilbasso
Member Posts: 1522
From: Greensboro, NC USA
Registered: Feb 2006
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posted 03-21-2019 03:45 PM
Amazingly, a large shuttle tile from Columbia turned up in December 2018 in Cherokee County, Texas, near the town of Alto. It was returned to NASA. |
SkyMan1958
Member Posts: 867
From: CA.
Registered: Jan 2011
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posted 03-21-2019 04:55 PM
When you say a large shuttle tile, would you have any info on its dimensions? Thank you! |
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