Documents / FOIA release
This is a July 27, 2021 FOIA response from NASA's Office of Communications to John Greenewald, Jr. It covers records from Leslie Kean's lawsuit against NASA seeking Kecksburg documents. NASA released 207 pages in full, 7 in part and withheld 31, noting that most of the lawsuit case files had been destroyed under records retention rules. The enclosures include court declarations, a 2003 appeal decision ordering a broader search, a 2019 FOIA response, and Stan Gordon's account of the missing NASA fragology files.
“Headquarters”17 pages
......u (5) 0, o • "Illh •'", .1 •..,.,of Ion' Tech. ttx:e ma 36 ;'leating rate shown in figure 5. If. as seer.e l1.Xely. the sol.ut.ia11n:11cate8 a deeper penetn.ticn of the beta t:raneformat.ica tuJpcrature than the micro r..ructure d.... ()~tr ...... it Ir8Y l:e collclud..ed.1Ut IIh1eldin;J did occur durin;J part of the ~-cray. It will not be p::l9sihle 1:D IIQI::k badt fran th:I ~ penetntiat Ilt the beta transfonm.titll teqlerature to ()eterm1ne the p::dnt at ...tt1ch tiE rJti.eldina disintegrated becalms of the iltpoaaibilityof fixiDg the sphere tenpnl- wre Io'ben 1n1t:1ally ~ tD the St::Ieai1I. Also, the velocity m;l tnjl!K.'lory hiBtory of tba ahiclded spQtI:e ~ be markedly different froo. tmee calculat:ed h!Ire for the sp:ere, s;) these furtter initial o:n:lit~ [or a::vp..!t.4tian of tnt spbeze t.etperat::ure hi,torT follcwing 1081i1 of the .Jrl'141J:l,r lOlld J:e \.U:'IiMlilable. 'Ib:u3b <lll the evidenoe i.e c:iJ:p.mItantia. then C!IIIl be little Ihlbt that. the lblllla Ball ~ itlll CXlIpIIflialIlete CXlre priIn. of a ipiICe bX6ter, or a apace o:aEt. I 'Ihat thI balls ~ of q.s. origin seems certain alao, partiQililrly ao there an II'enY IWlis.'lIId ~ aOO deecripticrlS ct. U.s. nx:iaIt. vehicles Bix:Jwi.o3' aiJailar 1 t.1tanil.l1l ~ _.haN.. To ~ reached their f!r.d inptct point.8 by ballistic sub-omital :fl~ flail th! IJ'Bjor u.s. ~ lites on tiE east iI!I1 west UlIU!tB of U.SA. \O.lld have required flight path angles at re -enuy whiah w::W.d have ~.u.ltad in alnDst oertain deat:ructicn of the lMIlb - ~-fmI:ry at lI:l aach of only .;I IoO.Ild nUlIllt in ;m i.ncreaal in ~ heating rate of non! than ~ O\i'er that eJ!Peri~ dJring ortrltal decay• .ni even though the flight t.ime fmn re-entry to irrpact is CCIIlIIiderably rec3uoed ... rI!l--fll'lUy occurs .. a finite an;le, tb! terrpeI:ature& irdlOe:1 IOlld be sufficient to ~ en ~ected Bphere of thio type; nort pt'CIb.1bly, destructicn IO.Jld alao oor::ur wit.'l sb:leldim prese[It dur1n3 part of the. re-entzy. wless very ~ Bhielda went ••d.. Henoe it iA o:ncluded t.bat tl':e ilalllia Ball was aJCe part of a u.s. ~ J vehicle in otbit. :bt really :int.ere&t1ng point bro.lght CKlt 11 that the ~ IOlld survive re-entty by decay f=arI cL""Ollar <.:Cit witb:ut aDf ebialdingj whethar this particular sPlere _ shielded or not sWJld be anB'..ered bT the further ~.
FOIA release, cited by the archive. The PDF is mirrored here; the original link is above. 223 pages are in the text index: search them above, or from the library's search.