One of the eight Canadians who have travelled on the space shuttle says the Columbia disaster has dealt Canada's space program a significant setback.

But Bjarni Tryggvason, who flew aboard Discovery in 1997, also said he's confident that NASA will resume shuttle flights much sooner than the three-year delay that followed the Challenger explosion in 1986

"Right now, the major role the shuttle's been playing is the support of the international space station and that is very major part of the Canadian program," Tryggvason told CTV's Quesion Period on Sunday. "We've provided the robotics and science.

"Over the next few years, the plan was to do a considerable amount of science at the space station."

Canadian astronauts Steve MacLean and Dave Williams were scheduled for missions this year.

Two Canadian-based research projects with applications in the health sector were destroyed Saturday when the space shuttle Columbia broke up in mid-air, killing all seven astronauts.

Marc Garneau, Canada's first astronaut and president of the Canadian Space Agency, pegged the Canadian investment in the experiments at "hundreds of thousands of dollars."

"The experiments were successful during the mission, but the analysis of the samples was to be done when the shuttle returned," said Garneau.

A team from the Canadian Space Agency was waiting Saturday at the Kennedy Space Centre in Florida to fly the retrieved materials in a Lear jet to Pearson airport in Toronto for distribution to researchers in Toronto, Kingston, Ont., Montreal and Saskatoon.

The Columbia mission was the seventh since 1993 in which the Canadian Space Agency had sponsored similar research.

The Canadian experiments were among more than 100 projects on the subject of microgravity conducted during the 16-day mission.

Tryggvason also said the public should never become complacent about the risks involved in space travel.

"It's only the 113th time a shuttle has flown so it really can't be viewed as an airliner," Tryggvason said. "There are many critical phases of re-entry where control of the shuttle has to be very accurate or something could go wrong, as we saw yesterday."

Tryggvason also said he's confident that shuttle flights could resume within one year.

"The space station is up there right now and its very critical to the station program that the shuttle is brought back for support."