(STBSS) Document found on bombed subway train, page 1

During the investigation into the bombing of a subway train in London on July 7th a partially burned page of a document was found. The following is the information found on that document.

Senator 'A' "Explain to me again why it was not possible to have rescued the crew of the Columbia when we found out about the damaged wing?" We spent over a hundred billion dollars on that mystery machine that you have parked out there in the desert, We make regularly scheduled runs to our bases on the Moon and Titan and you mean to tell me that we have to let seven people die on a return from low Earth orbit ? Hell!! I've made the run to Titan twice just to see the ruins from the Grey base!!!"

Witness 'R' "Senator. I have already explained this to the President and to the MJ-12 Commission. We could have sent one of our TAVs up and recovered the crew with no problem...except"

Senator 'A' "Except!! What?"

Witness 'R' "Calm down Senator. You are in this mess as much as I am!. You know as well as I do! The crew of the Columbia was sacrificed in order to maintain the secrecy of our capabilities in space! This wasn't as simple as the Apollo rescue in '69 sir! The rescue of Aldrin and Armstrong from the surface of the moon after the LM tipped over on landing and returning them to the Command Module while it was on the back side of the Moon was fairly easy. Hell! Having one of our discs flying shotgun was the only way we could get anyone to ride that piece of junk into orbit let alone to the moon!! We just got lucky that neither of them got hurt! I am still impressed on how well the security on this has stood up over the years."

Senator 'B' "I don't understand. The Columbia's crew had the same clearances as the Apollo astronauts. All of our astronauts and key ground people have them. They all know about the TAV's, our bases and space fighters. Why couldn't we have rescued them and covered it up like we did with Apollo?"

Witness 'A' "Ok. I'll go over it one more time. The Columbia was too close to the Earth. Do you know how many amateur astronomers watch the shuttle flights through large telescopes? Thousands. We couldn't have them seeing the shuttle break-up into thousands of flaming fireballs and then have the astronauts who were supposed to be on board suddenly show up as if nothing happened."

Senator 'A' "We couldn't have rescued them and then landed the shuttle by remote control? I thought that the shuttle could be flown from the ground?"

Witness 'A' "Yes, Senator. The shuttle can be flown from the ground. We added that capability after the Soviets knocked down Challenger in the 80's. That was when we planned on flying the shuttle missions by remote control and having the astronauts do their television feeds from one of the TAVs. As I recall your husband....I mean the President didn't think that we could keep it secure enough and he didn't need the fallout from this on top of everything else. I mean he signed the Executive Order ordering the shuttle to carry live crews."

Senator 'B' "Lets not bring politics into this. You have pretty much covered the initial question. Do you have anything else too add?"

Witness 'A' "Yes. I would like to state for the record that I think that the decision of the Columbia crew to ride the shuttle down knowing that there was a chance of it breaking up has to be one of the bravest sacrifices ever made for this country. We offered to pick them up and take them to Moon Base until things settled down and return them to Earth into something like the Witness Protection Program, but they loved their families too much for this to happen. They knew the score and knew that the revelation of their rescue would break the security of this program and cause mass panic. I just wish that the people of the world could know of the lives lost and the sacrifices made to save this planet.