-Caveat Lector- ------- Forwarded message follows ------- To: Distribution list suppressed <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> From: Jim Rarey <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Date sent: Thu, 20 Feb 2003 04:28:32 -0500
MEDIUM RARE by Jim Rarey February 20, 2003 COLUMBIA INVESTIGATION CONTROVERSIES If the conclusion in the Columbia tragedy is not controversial, the investigators themselves will more than make up for it. What with NASA spokespersons contradicting each other, theories being put forth, then dismissed only to be postulated again and finally admitting to the obvious, if the public isn't confused, they aren't paying attention. And this doesn't even involve the so-called "independent " panel appointed by NASA Administrator Sean O'Keefe. Early on the first hypothesis was that tiles had come off that were damaged on takeoff. Then, that was dismissed since that had been investigated a day or two after liftoff, using projections and simulations. A few days later that theory was put back on the table since no better theory arose. That is, no theory they were willing to consider. Two photographs, one taken in California and the other in Nevada, showed the shuttle being hit by significant electrical discharges of some kind. NASA's first reaction to the California picture was that something may have been wrong with the camera or it was jiggled (although on a tripod) when the photo was snapped accounting for the lightning- like streak that appeared to hit the Columbia. However that theory died when the camera manufacturer tested 1.000 identical cameras (which were digital contrary to initial reports, thus not requiring film to be developed) and could not duplicate the phenomenon. That was before the Nevada photograph surfaced. Then the theory was advanced that the bolt of electricity could have been a "Pixie" a fairly common phenomenon where, in certain weather conditions, electrical discharges jump from clouds to the Ionosphere and vice versa. That was immediately discounted by outside scientists and meteorologists (who are also scientists, before I get any hate mail) pointing out that there were no clouds or adverse weather conditions at that time. NASA has on several occasions delayed shuttle re-entry to avoid storm conditions. Since then, NASA and the media have been doing their best to ignore both images. Then NASA officials pointed to the fact that, up until then, no debris had been found west of Texas, which didn't support the eyewitness who said he saw pieces breaking off the shuttle over California. However, yesterday (Wednesday) NASA finally admitted the obvious. The shuttle started to break up over California. Of course any first year physics student, or even common sense, would tell one that pieces coming off an object traveling at 21 time the speed of sound at an altitude of more than 43 miles, would not touch down anywhere near where they came off. NASA also pledged that any further information would be released through the "independent" panel. The NASA charter for the panel has already been revised three times in incremental efforts to give the perception of independence from NASA. NASA Administrator Sean O'Keefe has made all the appointments. In this writer's article of Feb. 8, it was pretty much established that the panel, as it was constituted then, was loaded with military brass with connections to the Air Force directed energy weapons programs. It has been acknowledged that one of the experiments carried out on the Columbia was the release of two miniature satellites into space from the shuttle. Called "picosatellites" developed by defense contractor The Aerospace Corporation and funded by DARPA, they are the precursors of inspector satellites to spy on other full-size satellites. A local sheriff in Texas has reported some of the shuttle debris recovered is radioactive. So far there has been no confirmation or denial from NASA. One science writer claims an experimental night vision multi-spectral telescope that was powered by a new isotope used in nuclear power named Americium -242 was used in the Columbia's orbiting around the earth to evaluate vapors in Iraq evidencing night-time disposal of chemical weapons material. The panel has a momentous task to sort everything out and didn't really need the unnecessary controversies it has brought on itself (or been visited on it by O'Keefe's appointments). For starters, a NASA spokesperson said O'Keefe appointed the panel the day after the Columbia crash. However, O'Keefe later told the press that the panel was in place before the Columbia tragedy as part of a contingency plan following the Challenger disaster. Two appointments made over the weekend have stirred the pot. The first, Sheila E. Widnall, a MIT professor seemed innocuous enough although she is also a former Air Force Secretary in the Clinton administration. We now find that she also was a paid consultant to the Boeing Corporation. Boeing and its joint venture partner Lockheed Martin in United Space Alliance manage both the space station and shuttle programs. The joint venture is shielded from liability in the tragedy as NASA has indemnified it. MIT and a spinoff (MITRE) are very much involved with the military space program. Widnall has been joined on the MIT faculty by John Deutch, former Director of the CIA and a Director of the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) and CitiGroup. In 1959, MIT spun off its Lincoln Laboratory as a private company and renamed it MITRE. Its first Chairman of the Board of Trustees was H. Rowan Gaither. "In the fall of 1953, Norman Dodd, Director of Research for the Reece Committee, was invited to the headquarters of the Ford Foundation by its president, H. Rowan Gaither (CFR). According to Dodd, Gaither told him: "Mr. Dodd, all of us here at the policy-making level have had experience, either in O.S.S. or the European Economic Administration, with directives from the White House. We operate under those directives here. Would you like to know what those directives are?" Dodd replied that he would. Gaither said: "The substance of them is that we shall use our grant-making power so to alter our life in the United States that we can be comfortably merged with the Soviet Union." MITRE has been involved in weapons development with the DOD since inception. Its first facility outside of Massachusetts was at the Peterson Air Force Base in Colorado, home of the Air Force Space Command. MITRE also developed the unmanned planes the CIA is now using for reconnaissance (and assassination). Most of the DOD appropriations for directed energy weapons go to the Air Force. However, the Department of Energy has played a large role in the research and development of the weapons. At least four of the department's 10 secret laboratories are involved in the general category of "directed energy" weapons. All ten of the labs are "GOCO's" that is government owned, contractor operated. For instance, DOE's Sandia lab located at Kirtland Air Force Base is in the forefront of directed energy research and experimentation. It has a 23000 square meter building that houses the world's most powerful gamma simulator. It is capable of generating extremely short bursts of an electron beam of 13 trillion watts. It is used primarily for simulating the effects of prompt radiation from a nuclear burst on electronics and complete military systems. The contractor managing the Sandia lab is Lockheed Martin. The Air Force operates 14 space weapons programs in space, and at least two ground based platforms including Sandia and the HAARP installation in Alaska masquerading as a scientific examination into the effects of high auroral activity on the ionosphere. O'Keefe's second appointment over the weekend may be the most controversial. Roger Tetrault was supposed to quell criticism that the panel's members are too close to NASA. However, the Orlando Sentinel disclosed the day after his appointment that Tetrault is former Chairman and CEO of McDermott, International at the same time that O'Keefe was a director and member of the audit committee on a subsidiary, J. Ray McDermott of which Tetrault was also the chairman of the board. Before becoming CEO of McDermott International, Tetrault was vice president of a McDermott subsidiary, Babcock and Wilcox, which made parts for the shuttles' solid rocket boosters. Another McDermott subsidiary, BWXT is the sole supplier of nuclear fuel for the U.S. Navy and for research and test reactor fuel for DOE's national laboratories. It also processes enriched uranium. In partnership with Bechtel National, Inc. it manages the DOE's Oak Ridge uranium enrichment operation. Another joint venture of McDermott International (DynMcDermott) with DynCorp has for the last nine years, and will for the next five years, manage the DOE's U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve. In 1999, during O'Keefe and Tetrault's tenure at J. Ray McDermott, former vice-president Littleton Edwards Walker pled guilty to one felony count of bid rigging. On May 16, 2000, the former president of the company, Michael Harless Lam, was indicted on one count of conspiracy in bid rigging and two counts of mail fraud. As far as this writer can determine, the above is the first mention in the media of the guilty plea and indictment in relation to O'Keefe and Tetrault's involvement with NASA or the Columbia investigation. But you can bet it won't be the last. (In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes.) Permission is granted to reproduce this article in its entirety. The author is a freelance writer based in Romulus, Michigan. He is a former newspaper editor and investigative reporter, a retired customs administrator and accountant, and a student of history and the U.S. Constitution. 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