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Texas drought unveils piece of shuttle Columbia wreckage
Aug 2, 2011, 21:12 GMT
Washington - The drought that has dried out much of Texas unveiled a piece of the space shuttle Columbia wreckage that had lain hidden in a lake for years, police said Tuesday.
The water level has dropped in Lake Nacogdoches, just west of the west Texas city of the same name, revealing a fuel tank from the shuttle that disintegrated on reentry into Earth's atmosphere in 2003.
A piece of foam insulation that broke off on takeoff and damaged the shuttle's heat shield was blamed for the accident, which killed all seven astronauts aboard.
Scattered across a vast area of Texas and Louisiana, much of the wreckage was never recovered.
The disaster prompted NASA to reevaluate the shuttle programme and contributed to the eventual retirement of the fleet last month.
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