It appears the Columbia space shuttle did, indeed, have radioactive materials on board.

 
In an interview with National Public Radio last night (02/05/03), the Sheriff of Nacogdoches, Texas, Thomas Kerss, declared the following: "There was radioactive material on board." Kerss also declared that all the debris found by the retrieval operations would be tested for radioactivity.

So there you have it. And you can imagine the anger that NASA and U.S. military
officials are feeling toward Sheriff Kerss for spilling the nuclear beans to the public.
But it's the Texans that should be the angriest. They are the ones who have apparently become unwitting guinea pigs to NASA's madness. They, quite literally, got dumped on.
The fine folks at the Global Network Against Weapons and Nuclear Power in
Space have issued an official Freedom of Information Request to NASA seeking
the " full disclosure of the type, the amount, and the purpose of radioactive material on board Columbia."

If the history of NASA is any indication, it won't be easy getting straight answers. Karl Grossman, the author of the NASA expose, The Wrong Stuff, has been trying to get information from the space agency for years and has been frustrated every step of the way.

"They lie as much as they breathe," Grossman declared on Pacifica Radio's "War
& Peace Report" last night.

NASA has a sorry history of cover-ups, deceit, and information obfuscation, making it akin to a wild goose chase just to get the most basic information about its missions. NASA's trump card when dodging information predators is to claim "national security." And given the agencies close knit relationship with the U.S. military, it's a claim it often gets away with.

But now that the Columbia shuttle has exploded above our heads and its super-secret-contents have rained down upon us, the public must be informed
about the dangers we're facing. The nation's health and security is at risk, and it's
NASA that has created this clear and present danger.

If there is anything left of our democracy, now is the time for it to be tested.

NASA and the U.S. military must not be allowed to hide behind their convenient
sheaths of secrecy. The public must be informed about the dangers that lie ahead,
and NASA must be reined in to meet the goals of the people.

In recent years the world community has made it clear that they find U.S. arrogance too much to bear. The U.S. has cancelled international peace and environmental accords; its used its military might wherever and whenever it likes; and it's turned its back on billions of poor, starving, and ill-housed global citizens.

And now the U.S. wants the world's sympathy for the explosion of a multi-billion-dollar space toy and its seven astronauts. Sorry, Mr. Bush, but the U.S. is only looking more arrogant by the minute.

Unfortunately, much of the world is all too familiar with explosions -- they usually
mean U.S. military warplanes are on the horizon. Within a matter of weeks it looks like hundreds and thousands of additional military explosions will occur in Iraq, Afghanistan, and maybe even North Korea.

How is it that we deserve the world's sympathy?