Space Shuttle Columbia Recovery Search -- Texas, April 2003 Last spring Paige Phillips and Flint Kinkade traveled to Palestine and Nacadoches in south east Texas to help the recovery teams search for debris from the Columbia Space Shuttle. Search teams comprised of the US Forest Service gathered from around the country. Working in straight lines with 10 foot spacing between each person, the wildfire firefighters gridded the area beneath the flight path. Each team of about 20 wildfire firefighters searched the countryside through pastures, swamps, dense forests and everything else that east Texas has to offer. Flint and Paige were each assigned to a USEPA Superfund Technical Assessment and Response Team (START) unit to document and log the findings for NASA. The dedication and hard work of all involved made the search effort possible. The main 2,400 square mile search corridor was completed by the search teams. By the search completion about 40% of the shuttle, by weight, was recovered. This amazing experience will never be forgotten. In their 21 day stay in Texas, Flint and Paige met many great people and became a part of history. Here are some photos from their expedition.  click on any image to see detail views Flint's Team Paige's team, Cherokee 88, after a hard days work   Paige in the field with  a NASA representative VIRIDIAN showing off! The terrain could  be pretty dense Gridding even works  around cow herds! Search teams always like to stay in their single file lines even while relaxing.    Keeping up with the team  could sometimes be a challenge