Indeed, there are no anti-aircraft missiles that can reach 200,000 feet, and making one would be virtually impossible, even if al-Qaeda had a massive project backed by Iraq and Mexico. (It would be a big missile, hard to hide without backing from Mexican or Texan authorities.)
But at least some Islamists will claim "credit," either for themselves or on behalf of Allah himself. They could not help themselves, given the Israeli angle and the Palestine Texas angle.
On that note, I just heard that the Israel Air Force Colonel on board was one of the pilots who bombed the Osirak reactor in Iraq 20 years ago.
Other sailing ships have further enhanced the luster of the name Columbia. The first U.S. Navy ship to circle the globe bore that title, as did the command module for Apollo 11, the first lunar landing mission.
On a more directly patriotic note, "Columbia" is considered to be the feminine personification of the United States. The name is derived from that of another famous explorer, Christopher Columbus.
The spaceship Columbia has continued the pioneering legacy of its forebears, becoming the first Space Shuttle to fly into Earth orbit in 1981. Four sister ships joined the fleet over the next 10 years: Challenger, arriving in 1982 but destroyed four years later; Discovery, 1983; Atlantis, 1985; and Endeavour, built as a replacement for Challenger, 1991. A test vehicle, the Enterprise, was used for suborbital approach and landing tests and did not fly in space. The names of Columbia's sister ships each boast their own illustrious pedigree.
In the day-to-day world of Shuttle operations and processing, Space Shuttle orbiters go by a more prosaic designation. Columbia is commonly refered to as OV-102, for Orbiter Vehicle-102. Empty Weight was 158,289 lbs at rollout and 178,000 lbs with main engines installed.