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Discovery Lands in Florida
duh P3rf3ss3r writes "As reported by the BBC, the space shuttle Discovery safely landed at Kennedy Space Center in Florida at 2232 GMT. Discovery's 13-day mission is being called a success after astronauts undertook four space walks to install new wiring and to do battle with a recalcitrant solar panel. The next scheduled flight is the Atlantis shuttle in March. A video chronicle of the mission, including the landing, is available at NASA's video gallery."
land the shuttle too! http://www.the-underdogs.info/game.php?id=1758
Välkommen hem!
First swedish astronaut ever. I'm so proud!
Even cooler is the fact that he is funny (not some deeply overserious physics guy)- I very much enjoyed the interview with him from ISS.
Three rings for the Elven-kings in the sky
Of all news sources, why the random BBC link? Why not link to the shuttle website?
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It's currently planned for STS-125, which won't happen earlier than May 2008.
Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!
Don't worry - you didn't miss anything ... the Florida voters did a recount and it turns out that Discovery actually landed in Maryland.
Some people will find the negative in anything. Nothing wrong with a safe, routine KSC landing. For the record the shuttle has an 1100 mile cross range. It was in a highly inclined orbit, so its landing opportunities were limited. Also there are only a handful of runways in the entire world that can handle it, none of which are equiped with crane needed to place the orbiter on top of the carrier aircraft. A White Sands landing would have added 2 months to Discovery's turnaround for the next launch. If you really want to see a shuttle landing at White Sands, dig up the video from STS 3.
an ill wind that blows no good
We were hoping for a White Sands landing as it is 30 miles away from our house. I didn't know that it had previously landed there until early this year I was spending time at the White Sands Missile Range museum. Apparently the sand on the runway did quite a number on the brakes.
I think it might have landed here once while being flown from California on the back of its 747, but I'm not certain.
When you sympathize with stupidity, you start thinking like an idiot.
For all you space fans out there, I suggest you make an effort to watch these shuttle launches, landings, and ISS construction missions when they happen. There are only 14 more space shuttle flights planned before retirement of the entire fleet in early 2010. All except one (the Hubble Telescope repair mission) will be construcing and resupplying the space station.
Spaceflightnow.com has a nice manifest of future flights (see link below). Number 3 on the manifest just finished.
http://spaceflightnow.com/shuttle/sts116/fdf/maniYes the shuttles have enormous problems (huge costs and long turnaround times, for example), but they are really the most versatile and capable spacecraft ever sent into orbit. After the shuttles are retired, we'll be going back to Apollo-style craft for the foreseeable decades. I for one am glad my child is old enough to be able to see and remember these shuttles flying in their final years.
length of the orbiter (the longest supersonic vehicle there is, with the demise of the Concorde)
I believe that honor goes to the B-1B. According to Wikipedia, the STS orbiter is 122 feet long, while the B-1B is 137 feet.
Fascism starts when the efficiency of the government becomes more important than the rights of the people.
Normally they aren't that interesting to me, either. But this is different.
You see, after the Discovery had launched and was in space, it was discovered that something had hit the wing and maybe damaged some wiring. When I heard about that, I was afraid then that we might get another Columbia incident.
They set a record on spacewalks this mission because they had to take an extra spacewalk to fix that wing.
And then, this shuttle landed on the very last day it could have safely landed. There was bad weather in Calif. and bad weather in Florida continually up to that day. If it had tried to land through bad weather, it risked crashing. If it had stayed up another day, it would have ran out of fuel and become a very large piece of space junk. So the people in charge of landing this shuttle took a gamble.
So yes, the Discovery landing safely, in one piece, and with everyone onboard alive is news. Excellent news, but news nonetheless.
There is a fine line between recklessness and courage... -- Paul McCartney