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NASA - The Discovery has safely landed in California at Edwards Air Force Base at 6:11:22 am MST. Congrats on a super mission and a successful return!
As it were, there were several landing windows today at various bases, ranging from Kennedy to California. Most landings have indeed occured at Kennedy Space Center, as it costs a heckof a lot of money and risks damage to the orbiter if it needs to be piggy-backed on a modified747 back to Kennedy. Looks like they will need to do this this time, but I say take the landing when you can get it!
The crew spent 14 days in space, travelling over 5.8 million miles. Part of this mission was to experiment with new methods of checkign and repairing the shuttle in Space and carried out numerous space-walks to such an end. They also resupplied the International Space Station which, I imagine, was running a little short of Starbucks...
But what now? We can speculate all we want about the future of the Shuttle fleet and the state of Space Exploration, but simply put, it *must* continue. This was really a token test flight in my opinion. NASA fell off the bike, and after a lot of research, testing and soul-searching, had to get back on. Well, I would have to say it worked, despite the odd glitches with equipment and gap filler. So why consider scrapping the program? The media has blown every small issue way out of proportion I think, even to the point that a piece of gap filler a few centimeters long garnered more news coverage than the safe landing and return of the brave astronauts.
I have created a new poll on the sidebar regarding people's views on this... Should NASA keep on going, now that they are back on the bike? Should they hold off until a new craft is developed? Is Star Trek just geeky kids stuff? Take the time to pick an answer!!!
We have only recently discovered a new body in our solar system. With the number of planets and moons they have, it is time to consider more in depth exploration. Who knows what resources can be found on any number of Jupiter's moons?
Or perhaps even... *gasp* life!
NASA - The Discovery has safely landed in California at Edwards Air Force Base at 6:11:22 am MST. Congrats on a super mission and a successful return!As it were, there were several landing windows today at various bases, ranging from Kennedy to California. Most landings have indeed occured at Kennedy Space Center, as it costs a heckof a lot of money and risks damage to the orbiter if it needs to be piggy-backed on a modified747 back to Kennedy. Looks like they will need to do this this time, but I say take the landing when you can get it!
The crew spent 14 days in space, travelling over 5.8 million miles. Part of this mission was to experiment with new methods of checkign and repairing the shuttle in Space and carried out numerous space-walks to such an end. They also resupplied the International Space Station which, I imagine, was running a little short of Starbucks...
But what now? We can speculate all we want about the future of the Shuttle fleet and the state of Space Exploration, but simply put, it *must* continue. This was really a token test flight in my opinion. NASA fell off the bike, and after a lot of research, testing and soul-searching, had to get back on. Well, I would have to say it worked, despite the odd glitches with equipment and gap filler. So why consider scrapping the program? The media has blown every small issue way out of proportion I think, even to the point that a piece of gap filler a few centimeters long garnered more news coverage than the safe landing and return of the brave astronauts.
I have created a new poll on the sidebar regarding people's views on this... Should NASA keep on going, now that they are back on the bike? Should they hold off until a new craft is developed? Is Star Trek just geeky kids stuff? Take the time to pick an answer!!!
We have only recently discovered a new body in our solar system. With the number of planets and moons they have, it is time to consider more in depth exploration. Who knows what resources can be found on any number of Jupiter's moons?
Or perhaps even... *gasp* life!
posted by Zaphod at 6:55 AM
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