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| Shuttle looters arrested as search goes on |
| 2003-02-09 |
| Two people have been charged with looting wreckage from the space shuttle Columbia. The arrests are the first to be made in Nacogdoches County since the expiry on Friday of the authorities' amnesty for individuals who had collected, and kept, spaceship debris. Just shoot these sons-o'-bitches. This is Texas; they understand the "he needed killin'" defense. The shuttle exploded into thousands of fragments last Saturday, with most falling over eastern Texas. All seven astronauts on board were killed. Nasa engineers are desperate to recover as many parts of the shuttle as possible in a bid to unravel the reasons why Columbia broke up as it re-entered Earth's atmosphere at the end of a 16-day mission. Their task has been hampered by souvenir hunters, although the authorities warned people not to go near any shuttle fragments. In a bid to encourage people to give up any debris they had collected, police declared an amnesty. 'That grace period has now expired and people are now subject to prosecution since they made no effort to come forward,' said Sheriff Thomas Kerss. If convicted of stealing federal property, individuals could be sentenced to up to 10 years in prison and fined $250,000. Police added that they expect to make further arrests. 'We do have a number of names we have forwarded to the FBI so if things are not turned in we'll be following up on them at a later time,' Kerss said. 'Citizens are concerned because they know of friends or neighbours or relatives who have removed material from the shuttle.' In addition, government officials have revealed they are now searching the internet and local flea markets to ferret out shuttle pieces - a development that reveals how desperate they have become to discover the cause of the loss of Columbia. We're not desparate, we're angry that some nimrods would do this. Investigators are particularly anxious to recover pieces of the shuttle's left wing - now thought to be the source of its destruction. One ragged wing tip has already been recovered, though Ron Dittemore, shuttle programme manager at the Johnson Space Centre, said it was still not known if the fragment came from the shuttle's left wing or from the right wing, which gave no indication of problems. 'Certainly we're more interested in the left wing,' added Dittemore. Each of 27,000 pieces of the shuttle's tile system carries a heatproof serial number so engineers do expect to be able to pinpoint the origin of the scorched component. However, Dittemore said a high-definition military photo shot in the final moments of Columbia's flight is 'not very revealing', despite reports yesterday that it showed a ragged leading edge on the left wing and a plume of vapour or smoke trailing behind. 'It is not clear to me that there is something there,' he said. Dittemore also presented diagrams at a press conference that show the gradual thermal changes detected by sensors in the left wing and along the base of the adjoining fuselage. Some sensors registered a gradual increase in heat while others abruptly stopped working, as if wires had been severed or burned through. Godspeed to the seven, and to hell with the looters. |
| Posted by:Steve White |
| #2 "Hangin's too dang good fer 'im!" |
| Posted by: mojo 2003-02-09 21:48:00 |
| #1 I find these peoples' behaviour absolutely detestable. I hope they get the maximum penalty. Bastards. |
| Posted by: Tony 2003-02-09 11:25:10 |