on February 1, 2003 a somber President Bush addressed America: "This day has brought terrible news and great sadness to our country... The Columbia is lost; there are no survivors." Despite the major setback, the President reassured Americans that the space program would continue: "The cause in which they died will continue... Our journey into space will go on." Following the loss of Columbia, the space shuttle program was suspended. The expansion of International Space Station was also delayed, as the space shuttles were the delivery vehicle for station modules. NASA planned to return the space shuttle to service around October/November of 2004.

on February 5, 2003, that an unnamed amateur San Francisco astronomer had imaged Columbia with a Nikon 880 digital camera at around the time the shuttle first started showing indications of trouble, at an altitude of some 40 miles. To this day, the photograph has not yet been made publicly available and the camera in question was sent to Houston for further investigation by NASA. The Columbia Accident Investigation Board subsequently concluded that this was a result of a faulty camera.

Was the space shuttle Columbia purposely destroyed to divert government spending towards funding for the War on Iraq/Terrorism? I find it very odd that NASA is planning to return the space shuttle around the same time US will hand Iraq it's first presidential elections spelling the end to the war.