CTV NEWS February 15, 2003
New controversy surfaces in Space Shuttle Columbia disaster
SANDIE RINALDO: The shuttle investigation has taken a top secret turn tonight. It appears there are rumblings of a fight between the US military and NASA investigators over classified pictures of the Columbia's doomed descent. As CTV's Scott Laurie reports, while the images could provide a clue about what went wrong, they could also compromise national security. SCOTT LAURIE [Reporter]: The search for pieces of Columbia continued, this time in New Mexico. Investigators are trying to solve a puzzle.
RET. ADMIRAL HAROLD GEHMAN [Columbia Accident Investigation Board]: The lay-out is beginning to be put in place.
LAURIE: That puzzle now features a struggle between independent investigators and the US military. When Columbia and the seven astronauts hurdled through the atmosphere, top secret military surveillance equipment tracked the shuttle and might hold clues about what caused its break up and possibly even reveal what was happening before Columbia was over the US. The problem, the military does not acknowledge the tracking equipment exists.
JOHN PIKE [Space Industry Consultant]: The airforce and the intelligence community have several types of satellites orbiting the earth that are designed to pick up heat. Some of them can detect very hot objects reentering the earth's atmosphere and that might provide some clue as to the reentry of Columbia.
LAURIE: The items in question include this observatory in Maui and this defence satellite system code named Cobra Brass.
MAJ.-GEN. MICHAEL KOSTELNIK [NASA Associate Deputy Administrator]: Certainly, if there is imagery of the vehicle in this early time period when it's out over the water, this would be very interesting to us and perhaps very helpful.
LAURIE: Helpful to investigators, but more ominously, perhaps helpful to American adversaries.
PIKE: The big challenge that the intelligence community has is that by giving out information about what they knew about Columbia, that would also give out information about the capabilities of their radars and adversaries, like North Korea, might make use of that information.
LAURIE: While there is debate about releasing that secret information, investigators continue to scour the ground, wondering how and why fragments of the shuttle landed here and wondering if mysterious equipment in the sky has the answers. Scott Laurie, CTV News.
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