The vice president at the time of the Columbia disaster was Republican Dick Cheney. At the time this was happening he was in the throes of supporting George Walker Bush and Colin Powell in the 'SCHEME' of a lifetime that would place Halliburton in Iraq providing profits so his liability to the stockholders would be relieved. The Halliburton stockholders had sued Dick Cheney when they discovered he had cooked the books as CEO revealing lost profits.