POSSIBLE SHUTTLE PIECES FOUND IN CALIFORNIA.

Byline: Charles F. Bostwick Staff Writer

PALMDALE - NASA's expanded search in California for debris from space shuttle Columbia has turned up at least nine possible pieces, which officials say could provide crucial evidence from the earliest stages of the spacecraft's breakup.

National Aeronautics and Space Administration and Environmental Protection Agency officials on Wednesday were investigating debris reports that included a 2-foot-long piece of etched metal found o Cruz and a 3-by-3-inch piece of black foam found in Woodside, south of San Francisco.

In Joshua Tree, a resident found a fire-blackened metallic rectangle on his driveway. In Santa Clara, an object was reported to h stigators arrived.

``People are finding all kinds of stuff and attributing it to (Columbia). But they have to check each one out,'' NASA Johnson Space Center spokesman Dave Youngman said.

Government spokesmen were unable to say whether any of the California objects really came from Columbia.

Speculation on what happened to the spacecraft has centered on damage to the heat-resistant silica tiles that covered much of its exterior, providing protection from the 3,000-degree temperature experienced re-entering Earth's atmosphere.

Although NASA initially denied that any sign of trouble surfaced while the spacecraft was over California, it widened the search after an Owens Valley astronomer said he saw bright spots of light veering off from Columbia as it passed overhead before dawn Saturday.

An amateur astronomer then reported videotaping what appeared to be bits of debris coming off the shuttle as it flew over the San Jose area.

One NASA team was sent to San Jose, center of a cluster of finds, and another team went to Phoenix, Ariz.

While thousands of shuttle parts have been found in Texas and Louisiana, the debris found farthest west will be critical pieces for the investigation, said Michael Kostelnik, a NASA associate administrator.

NASA asked the California Highway Patrol to alert law enforcement agencies around California as to how to contact the space agency if people report finding possible shuttle debris.

``We don't know how credible they are,'' CHP spokesman Tom Marshall said of the reports so far. ``We aren't rocket scientists - the NASA people are. It's up to them to determine what the objects are.''

The Joshua Tree object is a 2 1/2-by-3 1/2-inch metallic rectangle that is less than a half-inch thick and has a burned spot in the center.

``We just described it on the phone to NASA. They said it could be consistent with something that came off the shuttle. They asked us to preserve it for them,'' San Bernardino County Sheriff's Department spokesman Chip Patterson said.

A resident of Joshua Tree found the object in his driveway Saturday afternoon and called the Sheriff's Department.

``He ran it over with his vehicle before he really noticed it,'' Patterson said.

Other objects were reported in Santa Cruz, in the mountain hamlet of Havilah near Lake Isabella, on Highway 101 north of the Golden Gate Bridge, in Fremont and Redwood City, and even in Los Angeles and Thousand Oaks, according to EPA officials who were helping NASA check out the California reports.

However, Ventura County officials, besieged by media calls, said they had no knowledge of any discovery in Thousand Oaks.

NASA said its earliest indication of trouble in the landing came at 5:52 a.m. PST, as Columbia flew over California at about 220,000 feet and 15,000 mph. Sensors on the left wing's landing gear brake line showed an unusual rise in temperature, then left-wing temperature sensors failed entirely five minutes later.

The shuttle broke up three minutes after that as it flew over Texas, 16 minutes from its landing in Florida.

About the time NASA began receiving the odd instrument readings, bright bits of light were seen separating from the bright reddis speeding shuttle over California, witnesses say.

Astronomer Tony Beasley, project manager at Caltech's Owens Valley Radio Observatory, was standing outside his Bishop home when he saw two small dots and then a large one detach and fall away from Columbia.

Of the third dot, Beasley told the Daily News on Saturday, ``there was a significant brightening and then something definitely came off it.'' NASA asked Beasley to provide a written statement of his observation.

The agency also asked for written statements from Daily News photographer Gene Blevins and aerospace photographer William Hartenstein of Burbank, who photographed Columbia's passage from the Owens Valley observatory and also spotted bits of light coming off it.

CAPTION(S):

2 photos, box

Photo:

(1 -- color) no caption (Space shuttle debris)

(2 -- color) Robert Beggs found this possible piece of the space shuttle in Joshua Tree.

Nick Ut/Associated Press

Box:

DEBRIS TRAIL FROM SPACE SHUTTLE COLUMBIA

SOURCE: Daily News research

Gregg Miller/Daily News