* Nobody is talking about the experiments by an Israeli astronaut that may have brought down space shuttle Columbia. Despite controversial photos of lightning hitting the craft, and knowledge that Ilan Ramon was working on a new way to spy on Iraq, the phrase "americium-242" - which is apparently the new technology to take us to Mars - remains hidden from the public. As Yoichi Clark Shimatsu wrote: "The negative charge of the high-energy electron pulse from the americium-242 would attract the positive charge of the gas plasma generated by sprites (lightning is positive in the upper elevations) .... A lightning burst would account for the sudden surge in temperature, the immediate shutdown of heat sensors and communications systems (why the ghostly "last words" were never transmitted to NASA monitors), and for the tumbling that sent Columbia, a flaming chariot of the heavens, to her doom." Ramon was testing an infrared spy camera that can see through clouds.