Ugh! I am sick of all this. No offense, but space exploration is a damn dangerous buisness. It is expected that accidents and system failures will happen and people will die. 2 crashes in the 20+ years the shuttles have flown isn't all that bad IMO. Especially since the first one was caused by blatent incompetence and bad leadership at Nasa. (as was the apollo 1 fire.) I see no reason after a thourough investigation that the shuttle can't fly again plenty soon. especially since this looks more like an accident than a design flaw, (Like with Challenger.) and because NASA isn't wasting time this time trying to cover up their mistakes. Yes I felt like I got punched in the gut when I heard it was the columbia. That shuttle should have been in a museum long ago. If it wqasn't for the fickleness of the american people and the apperant inability of politicians to properly fund the space program we would have a modern far more efficient design by now. I am sad but... If people get this upset everytime someone dies in the course of space exploration we will never get anywhere in space. At least till the next space race with the Chinese starts. Sorry for the rant, but I just feel the news people have been trying to stir something up by constantly painting the Astronauts on the ISS as being in some kind of Peril which is beyond ludicrous. we have plenty of shuttles, and they have souez capsules if the ever needed to leave the ISS.