Texas drought exposes doomed NASA Shuttle Columbia debris

The prolonged drought in Texas has revealed what NASA says is a tank from the space shuttle Columbia, which broke apart over east Texas as it re-entered the atmosphere in 2003.

Greg Sowell, a police sergeant in the city of Nacogdoches, which is located about 160 miles (250 kilometers) northeast of Houston, said the waters of Lake Nacogdoches, which are falling due to the record drought which has gripped the state, revealed an unexpected object.

"We found a large, about four-foot-diameter, round, what appears to be a tank of some sort," Sowell said Tuesday. "We have reason to believe this may be a part of the Columbia space shuttle."

The police department sent photos of the object to NASA for review, and experts at the space agency confirmed that the object was a power reactant storage and distribution tank. Such tanks are used aboard the shuttle to store cryogenic fuel for electrical power during flight.

Lisa Malone, a spokeswoman at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida, told msnbc.com that Columbia carried 18 of the tanks for its 16-day mission.

Columbia broke apart upon re-entry into the atmosphere on Feb. 1, 2003, killing the seven crew members on board. Debris from the spacecraft, which disintegrated over a wide area of east Texas, has been found in about 2,000 locations across eastern Texas and western Louisiana, including in Nacogdoches.

"Due to the drought, Lake Nacogdoches is at an approximately 9-foot low," Sowell said. "There has been an unusually large area of the lake which is normally underwater which has been exposed."

Sowell noted that space shuttle debris is considered government property, and that tampering with such objects is a criminal offense.

Malone said NASA and local authorities were working out a plan for recovering the tank and bringing it to Kennedy Space Center's Vehicle Assembly Building, where previously recovered pieces from Columbia — including other fuel-cell tanks — are being stored under climate-controlled conditions.