On the news of this morning's space shuttle disintegration: I wonder how this will affect the future of NASA. Since Columbia was NASA's oldest shuttle, they could argue that this is exactly why NASA needs increased funding, both to ensure that their fleet is completely shipshape and to help accelerate research into alternative forms of spacecraft (like the space plane concept). And, of course, given our current economic climate, I'm sure there will be lots of people wondering whether the space program is still worth the risk and the expense at all. It should be interesting to see what all goes down over the next couple of days.