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Wednesday, March 1, 2000

NASA studies object found on beach

Mystery item probably is nose cone from French Ariane 5 rocket booster

By Aimee Courtice
Caller-Times

George Gongora/Caller-Times

NASA official Nicholas Johnson (right) visits the home of Barney Corey (left) to take a look at the object that Johnson and a friend hauled away from a Mustang Island beach. Johnson says the object is most likely a nose cone from a French-made Ariane 5 rocket.

Barney Corey's hot tub hopes may be over.
   An official from NASA spent Tuesday morning at a Port Aransas mobile home park measuring a dome-shaped object Corey removed from a Mustang Island beach. Corey had put the object into a large hole behind his mobile home with thoughts of creating a hot tub.
   But Nicholas Johnson, program manager for orbital debris at NASA, said the object probably is a nose cone from an Ariane 5 rocket booster, and NASA officials may need to send it back to France.
   Johnson, who recorded serial numbers found inside the object, said he is almost certain the cone comes from the commercial rocket made by the French aerospace company, Aerospatiale.
   "There is no other component of a launch vehicle it could be," he said. "There seems to be little doubt that it came from an Ariane 5."
   Johnson said the serial numbers can be used to determine when it was launched and how long it had been in the water. He will share his data with Aerospatiale officials and thinks they will confirm his findings by later this week, he said.
   Johnson also said NASA notified the State Department that the object most likely comes from the French rocket.
   If the French want it back, NASA and the State Department will help return it. United Nations agreements made in 1968 require the United States to return the object if France wants it back.
   "After all of this, I guess there's no chance this will be a hot tub," Corey said.
   The object was discovered Friday morning by several vacationers on a Mustang Island beach. Saturday morning, Barney Corey and Benjiman Curcuru, regular beachcombers, took it to the mobile home park where they live.
   Curcuru said the two usually search the local beaches late at night or early in the morning and have found dolphins, sea turtles and shipwrecks.
   "We never expected we'd find anything like this," he said.
   He also said they decided the object was too unusual to leave on the beach.
   Corey said they dug a hole for it and placed the object inside, and contemplated how they could design a hot tub out of it.
   The Ariane 5 was first flown in 1996. The European Space Agency directed the first two flights. Aerospatiale Matra conducted the most recent flights.
   Ariane 5 rockets are launched from Kourou, French Guiana. Johnson said tides normally push the rocket booster components toward West Africa, but tides can push it another direction.
   Johnson said NASA formed a partnership in 1998 with Aerospatiale to monitor an Ariane 5 rocket launch in 1998 to observe the rocket booster's course.
   The rocket could be used for unmanned, and eventually manned, flights to an international space station, he said.
   Precinct 4 Constable Robert "Bobby" Sherwood said the cone would stay at the mobile home park until NASA notifies him.
   "I know it will be secure here," he said. "If it needs to be returned, I'll help mediate that."
   But Curcuru said he hopes France doesn't want it.
   "Hopefully it can stay put in Port Aransas and be put on display for the community. It's a historic object." Curcuru said.
  

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Staff writer Aim‚e Courtice can be reached at 886-3622 or by e-mail at courticea@caller.com

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