Discovery's Return

[omly]

Roger woke me this morning before he left as he knew that I would want to be awake for this. It is like comand center with all the computers I have on just for me. I have one for browsing so that another can be devoted just to the live NASA TV Video.

Call confirmed that she was on schedule. She got within ground tracking radar, and then we got images via an infrared tracking camera. Discovery just looks like a bright triangular speck in a field of black in it that gradually became more "shuttle-shaped". Live video is available where the nose can be seen to glowing as they land. They reported that the runway was in sight and were able to put down landing gear without a problem; they made it look like an easy everyday thing.

They are home! Landing convoy is coming into place. I am sitting here quite literally crying. I am so happy that everything went perfectly.

Comments

[sunspiral.livejournal.com]

::fingers crossed::

[omly.livejournal.com]

They did it!

[sunspiral.livejournal.com]

::whew:: After the Columbia disaster and the amount of shucking & jiving that NASA seemed to be doing on safety procedures, a safe landing for Discovery was anything but a given. Now I hope they ground the shuttle until a real solution is found for the insulation problems.

[mycroft.livejournal.com]

According to the aero geeks at MIT, the problem started with STS-87 in 1997, when they changed to a different type of foam, and there have been persistent problems ever since. This was part of some environmental effort gone awry.

[omly.livejournal.com]

Environmental as in there was something environmentally unfriendly in the old insulating material?

[mycroft.livejournal.com]

Supposedly it contained freon. I'm not quite sure how that worked -- I guess it was trapped inside the foam or something.

[omly.livejournal.com]

Yeah the being willing to disregard their safety procedures bothered me alot. I guess it is that they are under a lot of pressure for tangible results, but it seems like a cop-out. Even with the new missions proposed (yeah right mars by 2014 (http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2004/01/20040114-3.html)) there still does not seem to be a lot of headway being made with this insulator problem. And yet the funding to do things like this insulator research in the time scale they are asking for... not so much there to the degree that you would need for such a project.

[sunspiral.livejournal.com]

Mars by 2104? Seems unlikely. But I'm all for it, and think it would be particularly valuable to send George & his faith-based buddies there on a one-way trip to look for evidence of Intelligent Design.

[sunspiral.livejournal.com]

Oops, I meant 2014. That's what I get for trying to type before breakfast.