Don's presentation was about using various UAVs (Unmanned Aerial Vehicles) to do things like monitor severe weather and detect and monitor forest fires. There was even a solar powered UAV used in an experiment aimed at coffee harvest optimization in Hawaii.

According to The Register, the Western States Unmanned Aerial System Fire Mission is on hold due to a bit of sensitivity to having unmanned aircraft flying around. Now, I would have thought that having a lot of UAVs flying around might be a bit dicey anyway but my personal concern would be the liklihood of one dropping on my house due to some kind of failure unrelated to any terrorist activity.

Space News had an article back in January of 2006 about the increasing use of UAVs and although it was focused mostly on military use, they did say that "Even civil and commercial users are beginning to weigh the costs and benefits of UAVs for other uses..."

Apparently there is some concern about human factors in UAV accidents.

I hope that the NASA UAV team gets to start flying again soon. It's nice to hear about civilian uses of this technology.