Astronauts Recover Columbia Debris

In the thick, piney woods of East Texas, three astronauts scheduled to fly on the next space shuttle mission helped recover debris from the last one Thursday.

Shuttle commander Eileen Collins, James Kelly and Japanese astronaut Soichi Noguchi donned hard hats and thick yellow shirts and marched slowly and methodically with about 40 people to look for Columbia wreckage near Nacogdoches’ airport. The searching paid off, as Noguchi happily told Collins.

“We found a tile, yeah, yeah,” Noguchi said as he handed Collins a sealed plastic bag with a piece of broken tile. “I think this is the piece the guy right next to me found in the woods. I’m very happy.”

The astronauts, scheduled to go into orbit aboard the shuttle Atlantis when flights resume, searched for about two hours. The fourth member of their crew, Stephen Robinson, could not make the trip.

Speaking to reporters after the search, Collins thanked the search crews and noted the brush, thorns, lizards, snakes and spiders they had to contend with.

“These people are really making a sacrifice going out and doing this very difficult operation, and they have a great attitude about it,” Collins said. “This is an opportunity for us to thank them for the great work they’ve been doing.”

Shawn Martin, a U.S. Forest Service worker from Washington state who searched with the astronauts, was grateful for the help. “They wanted to pound brush with us. They fell in line and stuck up with us and bled with us,” Martin said.

Columbia broke apart over Texas on Feb. 1 as it aimed for a Florida landing. All seven astronauts aboard were killed.