Major Errors in Washington Post Story on Classied Imagery during Columbai Mission

“William Readdy, NASA’s top official for space flight, made the subsequent request to the National Imagery and Mapping Agency, a part of the U.S. intelligence community, the sources said.”

Editor’s note: There was a lot of commotion regarding the Post’s story this morning at a press event at NASA HQ. More to follow later. Suffice it to say, the Post did not get the story right according to OSF AA Bill Readdy. Readdy claims he did not contact the agency mentioned by the Post – or any other and request imagery of the Shuttle Columbia during the STS-107 mission.

“Ham, who had not directed a shuttle flight, heard about the request that afternoon.”

Editor’s note: The Post is also rather inaccurate in portraying Linda’s Ham flight control experience. Indeed NASA Watch has learned that Ham has quite a lot experience with Shuttle mission management having previously served as Ascent and Entry Flight Manager, and also has previous experience running the Mission Management Team.