It is highly probable that yesterday's crash will cause a major setback in the ISS program. Even if another design flaw is not found to be at the heart of the Columbia wreck, it is certain that the other shuttles will be grounded for at least a year. Columbia was, in fact, the oldest ship in NASA's shuttle fleet, built in 1981, five years before the Challenger tragedy. Though extensively refitted several times, most recently with a new cockpit, some sort of structural fatigue seems a strong possibility. It may well be that scientists still have much to learn about the huge stresses placed on metal which has to endure phenomenal stresses at launch and re-entry as well as the unique pressures of life in orbital space.

The immediate lesson remains, however, that this is a tragedy for everyone, not just the United States, India and Israel. We have all lost in this disaster. A technological challenge has been thrown down and once again, a warning given that in the unforgiving region of space, nothing can be taken for granted. The solutions may be a long time coming.

They will come. The struggle to conquer the space will go on. All that we can hope for is that, when the battle is won, the knowledge gained in the process will add to human happiness, not to human misery.

7 Astronauts die in shuttle blast over 'Palestine'

[Love the mockery-quotes. -ed]

"Once again we see that space technology can fail," Bruce Gagnon, international coordinator for the Global Network against Weapons and Nuclear Power in Space, told Arab News last night. "I'm troubled because the Bush Administration has recently announced a program called the 'Nuclear Systems Initiative', a $1 billion research and development program to expand the launching of nuclear power into space. The problem is that as you increase the numbers of launches carrying nuclear payloads into space, but you are also going to dramatically increase the chances of a catastrophic Chernobyl in the sky."

Asked why NASA was advising extreme precaution at the crash sites, Gagnon said: "We haven't heard that there was a nuclear payload on this shuttle, but one of the great hallmarks of the Bush administration is increased secrecy. I must admit that when NASA said no one should go near a site because of the toxic potential of the fuels and 'other reasons,' I couldn't help but wonder what those reasons are."

Due to cuts in NASA's budget in recent years, NASA has been forced to turn to the Pentagon for increased funding, said Gagnon. The result is that the space shuttles are now also NASA missions and carry both military and civilian technologies.

"What you have now is the military takeover of the space program. NASA is not just about gazing at the stars, it now also has a political and military agenda." What is of concern, he said, is that the Pentagon in now working on a program called the 'Space Based Laser.' "Its nickname is the 'Death Star,' and its job is to destroy other country's satellites, and also hit targets on the Earth below. NASA hopes to have the first operational tests by 2016 or 2017," Gagnon explained.

"This would give the US full control and domination of space and the earth below, because whoever controls space will control the Earth."

UPDATE: Meanwhile, Palestinians have expressed their heartwarming condolences, via LGF.