NASA considered retiring Columbia due to budget constraints in 2001. Story here. Apparently the shuttle experienced a number of engineering problems in the past, including a near disastrous combination fuel leak / computer failure in 1999, but that wasn't considered in the determination not to retire it, nor is that thought to have contributed to this morning's catastrophe.

I hope this is not traceable to budget problems.

Well I don't think I am very qualified to speak about the technicalities, blame or conspiracies but all I know is almost 17 years ago to the day I stood as a little girl asking why my favourite childrens programme had been interuppted with an urgent news flash only to be told that I would understand when I grew up. Today I don't understand. I don't understand the whys and wherefores and I certainly don't understand the level of human suffering that can be brought on by seeing your loved ones basically die before your eyes on International Television. I hope I never do understand.

There may have been a problem at liftoff with a piece of tile falling away from the rocket, but it will be a long time--if ever--before they really know what happened. I think that one of the reasons they are warning the public that the debris could be hazardous is because they want to recover as many pieces of the spacecraft as possible so they can attempt some sort of reconstruction. If people think the debris is hazardous they may be less likely to hoard pieces as souvenirs or try to sell them on e-bay. Since the pieces apparently fell over a 500 mile area, recovering them will be very difficult.

I heard such a very poignant comment from an Israeli spokesman this morning about Ilan Roman, the Israeli astronaut who was onboard. Roman was the child of concentration camp survivors, and on the Columbia he carried with him a drawing done by a 10 year old child who had perished in the camps. He took the drawing with him as a symbol that life continues. How ironic, and how very sad. I know the feeling here today, I can only imagine the great sadness in Israel. It would have been so uplifting had Roman been able to return home after a successful flight and been able to give the Israelis something to cheer about and celebrate for a change. A tragic loss all around.

We do take these missions so for granted now that we tend to forget the danger involved. Today was a tragic reminder of the perils involved.
It is heartbreaking to see the lives of the best and the brightest taken in their prime.

I understand that today's accident depletes our space shuttle fleet by 25%. I heard one commentator speculate that we might need to use a Russian spacecraft to bring home our astronauts from the space station. We really don't have backup shuttles in reserve. That's a frightening thought when there are people out there in space.

I really don't think this terrible accident resulted from budget problems, or from anything that could have been foreseen in advance. I think the people at NASA are wracked with enough guilt and doubts tonight--I'm sure they are second guessing everything about this flight. I don't think we should be too quick to blame anyone. No one wanted this to happen.

I watched the newscasts until there seemed nothing left to say by the news announcers or experts. It has been a sad, emotional day for so many. Be strong, America.

I remember sitting in my third grade classroom when our recess moniyor came in and was crying, he told us that the Challenger had exploded on liftoff, even at that young age it tore me apart.

Today as I lay in my bed sick as a dog my brother calls me on the phone to tell me that the shuttle Columbia had lost contact with NASA. I have no words to describe what I felt.

Reports say that ice breaking off of the ship during launch hit the shuttles wing and may have broken off some of the ceramic tiles that protect it from the heat. This would not have affected takeoff but it would affect the landing.

A few people who did not know what the debris was from, where burned when they went to examine it and were taken to the hospital.

Of all of the reports I have heard today the saddest is that they have found human remains among some of the debris.

I will pray for the family and freinds of the shuttle Columbia and hope that they did not suffer.

At about 3PM EST there was a report on the radio that one hospital had already decontaminated 30+ people.

Here, here Chelseabelle. I know it is sad that the one positive to have come from Israel in these troubled times is the story of Ramon but there were seven people with seven families to consider
RIP
Colonel Rick Husband
Lieutenant Colonel Michael Anderson
Commander Laurel Clarke
Captain David Brown
Commander William McCool
DR. Kalpana Chawla and
Ilan Ramon.

Lest we forget, amongst the blame and the curiosity that these are the individuals that will have no say in the aftermath that is the tradgedy that is, or was, the first of February 2003. God bless.

Found a very nice link with information on the shuttle Columbia.

Columbia

Here's the first paragraph for those who want to know age/why it was named COlumbia:

Quote:

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Columbia, the oldest orbiter in the Shuttle fleet, is named after the Boston, Massachusetts based sloop captained by American Robert Gray. On May 11, 1792, Gray and his crew maneuvered the Columbia past the dangerous sandbar at the mouth of a river extending more than 1,000 miles through what is today south-eastern British Columbia, Canada, and the Washington-Oregon border. The river was later named after the ship. Gray also led Columbia and its crew on the first American circumnavigation of the globe, carrying a cargo of otter skins to Canton, China, and then returning to Boston.

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MSNBC has info on the space station's occupants:

Quote:

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IF NECESSARY, a Russian Soyuz vehicle attached to the space station could bring the three astronauts onboard back to Earth at a moment's notice.

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However, there has been talk of not having a perm. crew onboard anymore - regular maintance would be performed by visiting crews.

For more info, http://www.msnbc.com/news/867344.asp

Edited to fix apostrophe problem mentioned in Copago's post in Feedback forum.

In Baghdad people have been dancing on the roofs.

Priority has now been placed on making sure school area are clear of debris. There are hundreds of debris sites. They are now concerned that there are not enough people to guard debris sites. Yet more body parts have been found. Our local news has (in my opinion) been covering the tragedy very well.

And, people have been stealing debris.

This is the latest news:

Engineers feared shuttle wing burning

WASHINGTON (AP) --One day before the Columbia disaster, senior NASA engineers raised concerns the shuttle's left wing might burn off and cause the deaths of the crew, describing a scenario much like the one investigators believe happened.

They never sent their warnings to NASA's brass.

"Why are we talking about this on the day before landing and not the day after launch?" wrote William C. Anderson, an employee for the United Space Alliance LLC, a NASA contractor, less than 24 hours before the shuttle broke apart.

After intense debate -- occurring by phone and e-mails -- the engineers, supervisors and the head of the space agency's Langley research facility in Hampton, Virginia, decided against taking the matter to top NASA managers.

Jeffrey V. Kling, a flight controller at Johnson Space Center's mission control, foresaw with haunting accuracy what might happen to Columbia during its fiery descent if superheated air penetrated the wheel compartment.

Kling wrote just 23 hours before the disaster that his engineering team's recommendation in such an event "is going to be to set up for a bailout (assuming the wing doesn't burn off before we can get the crew out)."

The following day, Kling was among the first in mission control to report a sudden, unexplained loss of data from the shuttle's sensors in the left wing.

The e-mails released Wednesday describe a far broader discussion about the risks to Columbia than the concerns first raised three days earlier by Robert Daugherty, a NASA senior research engineer at Langley.

He was mostly concerned about the safety of the shuttle landing with flat tires or wheels damaged from extreme heat. Among the messages was one from Daugherty's boss at Langley, Mark J. Shuart, to another Langley supervisor, Doug Dwoyer, describing Daugherty as "the kind of conservative, thorough engineer that NASA needs."

"I can only hope the folks at (Johnson Space Center) are listening," Shuart wrote.

The shuttle broke apart during atmospheric re-entry on February 1, killing the crew of seven. They were only minutes away from landing in Florida.

Feb. 26th
http://cnn.com