Nevada debris still not confirmed

Tuesday, Feb. 25, 2003 | 10:54 a.m.

Investigators don't know yet whether debris found in southeastern Nevada over the weekend came from the space shuttle Columbia, a NASA spokesman said this morning.

"We have not confirmed that any pieces of the shuttle have been found in Nevada," said John Ira Petty, spokesman for the NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston. "The farthest west location of any confirmed piece (of the shuttle) to date is the Texas panhandle.

"We've looked at a whole lot of debris that is not the space shuttle," Petty said.

He said he did not know whether studies had even begun on debris submitted from Nevada. Small pieces take time to analyze, he said.

Petty said the National Aeronautics and Space Administration has been interested in Southern Nevada as a potential site of pieces of the shuttle since the agency received initial radar reports of an object falling over Caliente on Feb. 1, the day Columbia disintegrated over Texas, killing all seven astronauts on board.

The NASA Human Space Flight website, where Petty said the latest shuttle debris reports are being posted, notes that "materials have been found in the area (of Caliente), but so far none have been confirmed to be from Columbia."

The continuation of searches along the Nevada and Utah state lines were on hold for a second consecutive day this morning because a storm system off the coast of Southern California pushed moisture northward over an the search area dropping snow on the search area.

The Lincoln County Sheriff's office postponed the search of the rugged high desert area about 170 miles northeast of Las Vegas because the forecast called for about 5 to 10 inches of accumulation today and potentially more snow through Wednesday.

"We are looking at some fairly unsettled conditions through Friday," said National Weather Service meteorologist Donald Maker at the Las Vegas office. "A heavy snow warning has been issued at elevations above 5,000 feet."