Columbia Shuttle Parts Loaned for Private Study

The first pieces of debris from the space shuttle Columbia have been loaned to private-sector researchers under a plan to make the orbiter available for study, NASA said.

Unlike the remains of its sister shuttle Challenger, which was destroyed in a launch accident in 1986 and later buried in an abandoned missile silo, NASA decided to catalog each of the thousands of pieces of Columbia recovered from Texas and Louisiana and make them available for researchers who applied for access.