Check out the book Bringing Columbia Home by Leinbach and Ward, it’s a truly incredible story of how they tracked and found everything and reconstructed the shuttle, and how these small towns went way above and beyond helping NASA find remains.
Worry about betraying the capability of spy satellites was one of the biggest reasons we lost the Columbia space shuttle. https://www.amazon.co.uk/Bringing-Columbia-Home-Untold-Shuttle/dp/1948924617
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I find it very interesting that the main narrator of the novel (Michael Leinbach) doesn't describe his role in the critical decisions of the day very clearly.