I am having problems with the goverment's statement regarding finding of parts of the craft. They have stated that they could be toxic and we should not touch anything, yet on their own offical site, they should photos of their staff carrying items with their bare hands and no protection what so ever. The fact is these items are commonly sold on e-bay and other sites for tons of money. The cheapest item that has flown in space was $750, and went up to $200,000.00.

I can understand the goverment saying hey let us have the item and when we have finished with it we will return it to you, but to lie and say it is toxic? Who is going to accept that story when it has been super heated to 3000 degrees?

I do not collect these things and I certainly would not think that I should keep them, but if something fell into my house, I think that they would be repairing my house before they got their part back.

They now have until June to get the program up and running once more and return once more into space, let's hope that they find the problem and fix it soon.

Speaking of budget cuts, the engine used was one of the old ones, not the new ones that replaced them, this was done to save money, even knowing that the newer model is lighter and better, NASA currently has but one of the old engines left, will they use it?

It's pretty transparent, or seems so to me. They said things are toxic because the engine/mechanical parts are coated with a toxic, colorless, odorless substance.<img src="http://www.arlo.net/ubb/smilies/hmph.gif" width=15 height=15> They say if you've touched anything, go to the nearest emergency room. Then when the emergency rooms in Nacogdoches are full, they say on the radio that if you've touched anything, just go home and bathe thoroughly, then see your private physician if you have any concerns. And they don't tell you what symptoms to look for. On the other hand, if anything had landed in my yard, I don't think I'd be touching it. And there are remains, so not everything was superheated.

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Ceashel:

It's pretty transparent, or seems so to me. They said things are toxic because the engine/mechanical parts are coated with a toxic, colorless, odorless substance.<img src="http://www.arlo.net/ubb/smilies/hmph.gif" width=15 height=15> They say if you've touched anything, go to the nearest emergency room. Then when the emergency rooms in Nacogdoches are full, they say on the radio that if you've touched anything, just go home and bathe thoroughly, then see your private physician if you have any concerns. And they don't tell you what symptoms to look for. On the other hand, if anything had landed in my yard, I don't think I'd be touching it. And there are remains, so not everything was superheated.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

I think the gov will say anything to try to convince people that all that "stuff" is evidence! They need every single speck they can get back in order to reconstruct the accident. It's called Forensics and it's quite possibly the only way they'll know "for sure" what caused this horrible accident.

What amazed me most was that some people were actually touching metal fragments! You could see the heat rising from some of the pieces. Souvenirs just aren't appropriate in this situation and that's what some people are collecting. Like the pothunters of old Indian sites!

<center><FONT COLOR="#000080">--- Edited 1 times, lastly by BuffaloGal on Feb 03, 2003 ---</FONT></center>

While not disagreeing with anything that's been said, maybe part of it at first had to do with concerns that NASA simply didn't know what to expect from the debris, and wanted to make sure no one else got hurt. Once it was found to be largely innocuous, the focus of concern changed. A possibility, anyway.

Incredible that with all that stuff raining down, no one got hit, though.

A true tragedy. More aware of it here cause it happened to the south & east. Saw the electronic sign, "Call police if you've seen shuttle debris". Very weird!!!

I checked E-Bay Sunday & all that was posted that's current are newspapers with the shuttle headlines. Everything else was pre-existing.

There were 6 e-bay items posted before the FBI stepped in and shut them down, e-bay then refused any future ads.

The real problem as I see it, is this. Some items are being sold and these are items that can only be got at by either people who have gone into space or NASA workers, and all these ads are legal. So john doe finds something, such as the guy who found the flight patch off one of the uniforms, him turning it into NASA is not going to help anything, yet the same items would sell to collectors for at least $1,000, NASA has got it and what will do they with it after the investigation is over? What are the odds someone working at NASA will be selling it under the table?

I understand they found the nose cone, my goodness it is a wonder no one got hurt from all these things falling from the sky. There is also that item the size of a compact car that fell into the lake, I am just so amazed that no one on the ground got hurt.

Also found out that the russians have a spare craft that the space station so those guys do have a way home. Their craft are limited use vessels so when they come down on it, they can not use it to return.