When the Space Shuttle Columbia started pulling apart across the east Texas sky in 2003, remnants of the craft were scattered across an area of 100 miles. When the bulk of the shuttle descended in Hemphill, Texas, near the Louisiana border, it triggered one of the largest non-terrorist forensic investigations in American history. When NASA put out a call for assistance, more than 3000 volunteers from Hemphill and the surrounding area stepped up, doing everything from an inch-by-inch search of the surrounding forests to cooking up meals a thousand or more home-cooked meals…
