A video image of a helmet that dropped into a yard in Norwood Community, Texas from the space shuttle Columbia

HOUSTON, Texas, February 2 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) – U.S. police in Hemphill, eastern Texas, said human remains believed to be from the crew of the U.S. space shuttle Columbia had been recovered on the ground.

The U.S. space shuttle Columbia disintegrated in a fireball Saturday, February 1, as it returned to Earth, killing all seven crew and scattering charred wreckage over a wide area.

“I can confirm human remains from the space shuttle Columbia have been found in the debris,” Hemphill police spokeswoman Karen Steele said, declining to elaborate, Agence France-Presse (AFP) reported.

She repeated a warning to anyone finding possible shuttle debris not to touch it. “Several people have been hospitalized at this time throughout the state for handling the debris,” she said.

CNN television earlier showed images of a hearse in a field in Hemphill with investigators standing nearby.

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) indefinitely suspended all space shuttle flights while an investigation goes ahead.

NASA Shuttle Program Director Ron Dittemore said: “There is certainly a hold on future flights until we get ourselves established and understand the root cause of this disaster.” Authorities said terrorism was not suspected.

The loss of Columbia, the oldest of the shuttles, brought back sharp memories of the explosion of the Challenger as it took off from Cape Canaveral on January 28, 1986, also killing all seven people on board.

Columbia first went into orbit in 1981. The other remaining shuttles in the U.S. fleet are Discovery, launched in 1983, Atlantis (1985) and Endeavor (1991), which replaced Challenger.

Columbia was on its 28th mission having just returned from a major refit. All of the shuttles were grounded for four months last year after cracks were found in part of their propulsion systems.

The last message from ground control to Columbia commander Rick Husband said: “To Columbia, here is Houston; we see your tire pressure messages and we did not copy your last” message.

After a moment, Husband replied: “Roger but ...” After a brief crackling noise, the radio went silent.

Hundreds of reports were made of debris landing on the ground. But the space agency warned people not to touch anything as the shuttle engines use highly toxic chemicals. 

“The debris field is within the area of eastern Texas: Austin, Dallas, Forth Worth areas,” said Beth Nischik, a NASA spokeswoman at the Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas. Wreckage also fell in neighboring Louisiana state.

Eight Australian “Spidernauts” Were Also on Board

Australian students who took part in an experimental project in which spiders were launched aboard the doomed Columbia mission were in deep shock Sunday after the shuttle disaster.

The eight Garden Orbweavers “spidernauts” were bred at Melbourne Zoo under a four-year project of NASA and students from Glen Waverley Secondary College and the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (RMIT) University.

The departure of the spiders, bred as an experiment to determine the strength of spiders’ web in space, was celebrated with some fanfare and jubilation in Australia when the shuttle was launched last month.

Australia woke to the news of the disaster hours later as television images showed the descent with white vapor trails suggesting Columbia disintegrated as it re-entered the atmosphere south of Dallas, Texas.

Kevin Manning of Melbourne’s RMIT University said the news of the lost mission and the deaths of the astronauts was a great tragedy and the students engaged in the project were devastated.

“I think in the back of all of our minds we knew that something like this could happen,” Manning said.

“We were looking forward to getting our spiders back today and I think at this point all we would really want is to have our seven astronauts back.”

Manning said researchers had been allowed access to scientific data throughout the 16-day mission and 90 percent of the data had been received. “The thing that’s missing are obviously the spiders and the samples of spiders’ web,” he said.

“But I suppose I can’t say it enough, all of that really became insignificant this morning.”

It was hoped the “spidernauts” would have allowed scientists to see if webs built at zero gravity were different to those created on the ground.

Low resolution video images, made available before the mission’s tragic demise, had suggested the harmless garden spiders had successfully built webs.

Progress space vessel to be launched as scheduled Sunday: official

Meanwhile, Russia’s aerospace agency Rosaviakosmos announced Sunday, February 2, that the launching of a Progress vessel to re-supply the International Space Station (ISS) was to go ahead Sunday as planned, despite the Columbia space shuttle tragedy.

Progress M-47 was to be launched at 1259 GMT from the Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan as scheduled, ITAR-TASS news agency quoted Rosaviakosmos spokesman Vyacheslav Mikhailichenko as saying, said AFP. The vessel is unmanned and controlled from the ground.

Three astronauts are currently on board the ISS: Americans Ken Bowersox and Don Pettit, and Russian Nikolai Budarin.

All space shuttle flights were suspended after shuttle Columbia disintegrated Saturday over Texas, killing the seven astronauts on board.

The ISS team already have enough supplies to keep going until the end of June, National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) shuttle director Ron Dittemore said Saturday.