Man, this just sucks. One of the astronauts went to school here in Madison.

I find it sad that we spend trillions on defense and space exploration, and we still fly such ancient craft. In the last week we had the loss of a U2 spy plane (40+ yrs old) and now a shuttle (20+ yrs old).

This is from the Columbia mission log:

12:47 p.m. EST, Jan. 31, 2003

Apparent minor tile damage on Columbia's left wing shouldn't affect the procedure for landing, entry flight director Leroy Cain said at a midday briefing. "All of the analysis says we have plenty of margin in that regard," he said.

The damage was likely caused by foam that came off the shuttle's external tank during ascent, a Johnson Space Center spokesman said.