GoFuckYourself.com - Adult Webmaster Forum - Body of Israeli Astronaut Found

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Feb. 5
? By Judith Crosson and Jon Herskovitz

HEMPHILL, Texas (Reuters) - Workers discovered key sections of the space shuttle Columbia on Tuesday, including wreckage from the fuselage and landing gear, which may help investigators determine why the space craft disintegrated over Texas.

In Israel, an Army spokesman announced early on Wednesday the recovery of the body of Israel's first man in space.

"NASA authorities this morning informed representatives of the Israel Defense Force that the body of Israeli pilot Col. Ilan Ramon, who perished in the Columbia space shuttle disaster, had been identified," the statement said.

"The official identification was performed by NASA, and Israeli representatives in Houston were formally notified. The (Ramon) family was likewise informed. All necessary preparation for bringing him to Israel for burial will be made in the coming days," the spokesman said.

No official word has been released on the bodies of the six American members of the crew.

The Shuttle debris, which included computer circuitry, was found in an area near the Louisiana border where the nose cone was located on Monday, said Jasper County Emergency Coordinator Billy Smith.

Recovery units paid particular attention to the area around Hemphill as recovery units searched the county's pine forests, river banks and open pastures to locate debris and remains from seven astronauts killed when the Columbia spacecraft broke apart over the American Southwest.

The independent board investigating the Columbia disaster got a first-hand look at the huge field of debris that scattered across Texas and Louisiana when the shuttle disintegrated 40 miles above the earth.

BOARD BEGINS PROBE

Board chairman Harold Gehman led the entourage. It visited a handful of sites near Nacogdoches, Texas, where debris rained down on Saturday in the worst U.S. space accident since Challenger blew up in 1986.

After viewing broken and burned parts from the shattered spacecraft, Gehman vowed to get to the bottom of what caused it to fall apart.

"Our first imperative is to get it right. The astronauts who will fly in future orbiter missions need to know that we have done everything we possibly can to come to the bottom of this and fix it," said Gehman, a retired Navy admiral who led the investigation in the suicide bombing of the destroyer USS Cole in Yemen.

Residents have been calling authorities since Saturday to report debris on their lawns, back yards or ranches. But police have reminded residents at every opportunity to make sure they do not move the items.

Nacogdoches County Sheriff Thomas Kerss said the U.S attorney was expected on Wednesday to issue an arrest warrant for at least one person for allegedly removing debris, a federal offense because all the objects from the shuttle belong to the federal government. He said in several other instances residents who were visited by police voluntarily relinquished the items in their possession.

In Sabine County, where Hemphill is located, military teams dotted the two-lane highway and country paths and marched through the thickly forested woods, looking for pieces of the space shuttle.

The "debris belt" across East Texas, where much of the debris fell, was estimated to be about 100 miles long and 10 miles wide. Shuttle debris has fallen in an area stretching several hundred miles in length.

BIOLOGY EXPERIMENT FOUND

The process has been slow but teams on horseback and in all-terrain vehicles as well as local residents have located one of the seats from the spacecraft, a set of tanks spewing unidentified gases, a six-to-seven foot section of a wing in a pond as well as thousands of other pieces of debris that rained down after the spacecraft broke apart.

Police from other jurisdictions were also pouring into the area to help, including three members of the New York City Fire Department.

A syringe containing the contents of a biological experiment in space was found intact. The nose cone was found on Monday in Hemphill, near the Louisiana border.

In Nacogdoches County, to the west of Sabine, 3,500 sites containing debris have been reported. About 100 sites have been cleared in the county, allowing life to begin to get back to normal in the schoolyards, public places and back yards where debris had been guarded.

As pieces as small as postage stamps are located, checked for hazardous content, tagged and bagged, the loss of the seven astronauts -- including the first Indian-born woman and the first Israeli in space -- is never forgotten.

Thousands of parts have been spotted so far and the pieces of debris will likely number in the tens of thousands, work team members said.

"It's the human factor. We're hunting for individuals to help provide closure for families," Sheriff Kerss said.

Recovery teams contain about nine people, including someone from the FBI along with a local guide to help navigate the difficult and remote terrain.

Sheriff Kerss said he was thankful for the mostly good weather to date, but noted the weather could take a turn for the worse in the next few days. "It just means they're going to have to bundle up more," he said, saying bad weather would not stop the search.

Search dogs from around Texas were called in to locate human remains. Searchers also had high-tech help from global positioning system handsets that allowed recovery of debris and human remains to move at a faster pace.