(The following information reflect the opinions of Stilldigging.com and the characters are fictional)


April 22, 2003

San Antonio Texas
Claybourne Airforce Base

1100 hours, 55 degrees, a cool misty morning, with gray skys
wind gusts from the south, and rain in the forecast

[Stump and Crowbar recline nonchalantly, in their Blackhawk Scavanger Hunter,
waiting for the go ahead signal]

Crowbar 'Dallas is 300 miles away, you sure you know how to fly this thing..
[Stump doesn't answer as he concentrates on the controls,
for the new craft, the latest in aviation technology.

Danny 'Where'd you learn how to manipulate the controls like that?.
[Stump shoots a glance at Danny, but doesn't respond]

Crowbar 'I can't believe the contingency unit was ordered to stand down, back in 63.
I'm tellin you JFK would be alive today, had that unit gone in there, like they were suppose to.
Danny 'who gave the order anyway?.
Crowbar 'Beats me, somebody high up, probably some dude in Operation Mongoose.
Danny 'Operation what? Claybourne is a great airport ain't it.

[Crowbar starts to talk, but is interrupted with his cell phone suddenly chiming ]
[Crowbar hands the phone over to Stump and accidentally drops it on the floor board]
[Stump shoots a biting glance at Crowbar, and the Crow quickly picks it up]
Crowbar 'It's SAC.
Danny 'Who?.
Crowbar 'Space command.
The images are ready for transmission
[Stump grabs the phone] 'Space command, transmit on my command.
[Stump immediately activates the satellite positioning disks
and enters the image transmission sequence.]

Stump 'Transmit now.
[Within seconds an image starts appearing on the onboard readout screen]

Danny 'I can't believe NASA cancelled that space shot back on January 23rd.
[Crowbar whines in a mimicking manner] 'Oh we have to go through proper channels,
we're sorry we put you through all that twubble, it's only a 500 million dollar mission,
those repeated warnings about potential damage to a 2 billion dollar space craft, just ain't enough
to warrant a little peek at the belly, oh, sorry we bothered you.
Danny 'You heard Dittimore, it was a doomed space craft anyway, there was nothin
they could've done.
Crowbar 'Not even a little space walk?
Danny 'It was an inexperienced crew, four were rookies, on a scientific mission.
Crowbar 'You say that like that's suppose to mean somtin.

[pause]

Crowbar 'What about the robotic arm grabbin a snapshot?
Danny 'Columbia just so happened to be without a robotic arm on that particular mission
Crowbar 'They couldn't make a pit stop at the space station?.
Danny 'it just so happened to be the only mission that wasn't a ferry,
since construction started in 98.
[Crowbar nods his head as if starting to disbelieve]
Danny Besides they didn't have enough fuel to get there anyway'

Crowbar 'What about a rescue shuttle?
After all Atlantis was due to launch in 28 days.
Danny 'They didn't know they were in trouble
Besides they only had sustenance for 21 days, there was no time my friend
[Crowbar shakes his head] 'so many possibilities, and not one was available

[Stump interrupts] 'We're cleared for takeoff, we're going to Dallas
Crowbar 'What, the image wasn't clear enough? from those highly sensitive and powerful
spy satellites.

[The copter lifts quickly and effortlessly,
and the crew of three were on their way to Dallas, for confirmation
of an incredulous image, received from SAC.

Danny 'This sure is a far cry from the Hueys we used in Nam,
we were like sitting ducks in a pond.
Crowbar 'What was the code name? "Hu", wasn't it? .
Danny 'Yeah, but it was changed to "uh" in 62, after JFK was elected.
Crowbar 'Uh? That was Columbia's last word "Roger uh" before it exploded.
Come to think of it, that was Challengers last communique, "uh oh" I think it was.
Stump 'Roger investigated Challenger didn't he? Roger Williams.
Danny 'Exploded? Columbia?.
Crowbar 'Well, senator Hutchinson said she heard a boom, and she was about
70 miles northeast of ground zero. It certainly wasn't a sonic boom.
Other witnesses in Dallas heard the same thing.
Danny 'Where was ground zero?
Crowbar 'near Fort Worth, JFK's last stop in 63

[The crew is suddenly interrupted by air turbulence as the Blackhawk
speeds to its destination at 350 mph]

[Crowbar shoots a glance of concern, but Stump ignores him]
Crowbar 'So where was I? before I was so rudely interrupted.
oh yes, so why the word "uh"?
Danny 'I ain't sure, I think it was a code word for medic evacuation.
Crowbar 'Brown and Clark were PJ's, I mean medics weren't they?
Danny 'What's a PJ? .
Stump 'Come on Danny, you were a lurp in Vietnam.
Danny 'Long Range recon, 75th Ranger infantry.
But they didn't make us Rangers until 69, when Apollo 11 launched.
Stump '75 billion was the Defense budget after JFK was taken out.
[Danny repeats the question] 'So what's a PJ?
Crowbar 'The best of the best, the elite of the elite, the baddest of the bad
PJ's are Air Force Insurgency commando's with a medical degree, or close to it,
everything they needed for rescue operations into enemy territory.

[pause]

Crowbar 'So did Columbia shed debris over California or not.
Danny 'That's what they say, near Bishop, probably over the White mountains.
According to sources, there was a series of flashes, that quickly slowed on descent.
Crowbar 'Slowed? Debris accelerates with the force of gravity doesn't it?.
Besides I thought the edge of space was at 20 miles, I could be wrong.
Danny 'Yeah so.
Crowbar 'Well Columbia blew up, I mean disintegrated at 40 miles, didn't it?.
Danny 'You could get air density shears as high as 80 miles,
that's the ignorosphere my friend
Crowbar 'Like NASA ignoring all those red flags.
Stump 'Ignorosphere? It isn't even a word is it?

Crowbar 'How fast was Columbia going when it blew, I mean broke apart.
Danny 'You heard the news, 12500 mph.
Crowbar 'Dam, that's gotta be faster than a speeding bullet
Danny 'Like superman, the man of steel.
Crowbar 'Stalin means "man of steel" in Russian doesn't it?
Danny 'You mean the same guy who predicted the end of capitalism in 1924.
He died 29 years later you know, after the stock market crash of 1929.
Crowbar 'Remember Superman II, powerful beings taking over the U.S,
the criminal element from Superman's planet Krypton.
Danny 'Yeah they stopped at the moon first,
and showed our astronauts how miniscule they were.
Crowbar 'Why'd they shut down Project Bluebook down in 1969?
The same year we made the first moon landing.
[Danny shrugs questioningly]

[Crowbars cell phone chimes again]
[Crowbar hands the phone over to Stump]'It's Jed.
Stump 'Jed, I need everything you could get on the Columbia.
Jed 'Which one? Apollo 11 in 1969? or the Columbia that disintegrated 2 months ago?
[Stump hesitates then says] 'Apollo 11 was called the Columbia?
Crowbar 'Yeah, it fulfilled JFK's promise, before he was eliminated in 63.
It was May 25th, 1961, right after he was elected, when he promised a man on the moon before 1970.
[Stump to Jed] 'Yeah get me that too, the Apollo 11 Columbia.