I just hope for a safe return home and THEN I'll feel much better. It just seemed to me that they were pushing for this too quickly just to make a point.
God Speed Discovery!
Space Shuttle Discovery
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TexasStooge
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Bird droppings survive space launch
HOUSTON, Texas (WFAA ABC 8/AP) - NASA's rocket scientists have a new appreciation for the out-of-this-world power of bird droppings. The orbiting space shuttle Discovery sported some whitish splotches on its black right wing edge that NASA officials said appeared to be bird droppings.
Shuttle lead flight director Tony Ceccacci said he saw the same splotches on the identical part of the shuttle about three weeks ago when Discovery was on the launch pad and laughed when pictures beamed back from space Wednesday showed they were still there.
That means these bird droppings withstood regular Florida thunderstorms, a mighty Fourth of July launch during which 300,000 gallons of water is sprayed at the shuttle's main engines, and a burst upward through Earth's atmosphere. During that launch Discovery went from zero to 17,500 mph in just under 9 minutes.
And still the bird droppings remained in place. Mostly.
Some of the droppings may have shaken off during liftoff, Ceccacci guessed. He figures the rest will burn up during landing, when the shuttle's edges get as hot as 3,000 degrees Fahrenheit.
Rob Fergus, science coordinator for Audubon At Home, a division of the National Audubon Society, sometimes gets calls from people asking how to remove bird excrement from their cars.
"Usually they can hose it off," he said. "Apparently that doesn't work with the space shuttle. Maybe they need a bigger hose."
http://www.wfaa.com/sharedcontent/dws/w ... 5f7a7.html
HOUSTON, Texas (WFAA ABC 8/AP) - NASA's rocket scientists have a new appreciation for the out-of-this-world power of bird droppings. The orbiting space shuttle Discovery sported some whitish splotches on its black right wing edge that NASA officials said appeared to be bird droppings.
Shuttle lead flight director Tony Ceccacci said he saw the same splotches on the identical part of the shuttle about three weeks ago when Discovery was on the launch pad and laughed when pictures beamed back from space Wednesday showed they were still there.
That means these bird droppings withstood regular Florida thunderstorms, a mighty Fourth of July launch during which 300,000 gallons of water is sprayed at the shuttle's main engines, and a burst upward through Earth's atmosphere. During that launch Discovery went from zero to 17,500 mph in just under 9 minutes.
And still the bird droppings remained in place. Mostly.
Some of the droppings may have shaken off during liftoff, Ceccacci guessed. He figures the rest will burn up during landing, when the shuttle's edges get as hot as 3,000 degrees Fahrenheit.
Rob Fergus, science coordinator for Audubon At Home, a division of the National Audubon Society, sometimes gets calls from people asking how to remove bird excrement from their cars.
"Usually they can hose it off," he said. "Apparently that doesn't work with the space shuttle. Maybe they need a bigger hose."
http://www.wfaa.com/sharedcontent/dws/w ... 5f7a7.html
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HurriCat
We watched in the Wekiva area, at a friend's cookout. Too cloudy to see, so we fired up the TV sets. My friend was bragging about how great it would look on the super-duper HD set. Yes, it did, but at launch I noticed that there was over a twenty second delay between the live launch on the standard set in the next room and what was on the "big" TV. Maybe nitpicky, but I'd rather see it "live" than almost half a minute later. 
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TexasStooge
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Discovery docks with the international space station
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla./HOUSTON, Texas (WFAA ABC 8/AP) -- Space shuttle Discovery docked with the international space station on Thursday, delivering its newest inhabitant, a German astronaut who will return the orbiting complex's crew to three for the first time in three years.
The shuttle's jets cut off and space station latches automatically hooked onto the shuttle as the two traveled 17,500 miles per hour, about 220 miles above Earth.
Once the hatch was opened, European Space Agency astronaut Thomas Reiter planned to move his seat liner to the Russian Soyuz spacecraft attached to the space laboratory, marking his transfer to the space station's crew.
An hour before the docking, Discovery commander Steve Lindsey manually steered the shuttle's nose up and slowly flipped the spacecraft over so the space station's crew could photograph its belly for any signs of damage. It was only the second time a space shuttle has performed the unusual maneuver before docking with the station.
The space station's two residents, Pavel Vinogradov and Jeff Williams, planned to transmit the digital images back to Houston, where mission managers and engineers would study them. An inspection Wednesday by Discovery's crew using cameras attached to a 50-foot boom revealed no major damage from the launch.
"Great to see you out the window," Williams radioed to Discovery after the shuttle fired maneuvering jets and made its final approach to the space station several miles away.
Lindsey responded: "Good to see you, Jeff. We're proceeding along normally. You guys look great."
The pitch maneuver was performed for the first time during Discovery's flight last year, the only other shuttle mission since the 2003 Columbia disaster.
Columbia had been damaged by a chunk of hard insulating foam that fell from its external fuel tank during lift off. All seven astronauts died when fiery gases entered a breach in the wing during re-entry.
Flyaway foam remained a concern during Tuesday's Discovery launch. Photos showed two areas of small foam loss around the ice frost ramps on Discovery's external fuel tank, but NASA managers said the foam loss was too small and occurred too late in the launch to be a danger to the shuttle.
Wednesday's inspection by the astronauts uncovered a thermal tile filler poking about a half-inch out of the belly of Discovery. Deputy shuttle program manager John Shannon said better data should be available later Thursday but for now, engineers do not believe the dangling fabric will pose a danger for re-entry or require repairs. Last summer two similar strips had to be removed in orbit.
The Discovery crew awoke Thursday to a recording of Elton John's "Daniel," a choice of Reiter's wife and two sons.
Reiter, who has a son named Daniel, will spend six months living on the space station. The crew's size had been reduced to two in the years after the Columbia accident when NASA's shuttle fleet was grounded; Russian vehicles weren't large enough to keep the space station supplied for more than two people.
The mission for Discovery's crew is to test shuttle-inspection techniques and deliver supplies to the international space station. Astronauts Piers Sellers and Michael Fossum plan to carry out two spacewalks, and possibly a third, which would extend the 12-day mission by a day.
http://www.wfaa.com/sharedcontent/dws/w ... ef9fd.html
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla./HOUSTON, Texas (WFAA ABC 8/AP) -- Space shuttle Discovery docked with the international space station on Thursday, delivering its newest inhabitant, a German astronaut who will return the orbiting complex's crew to three for the first time in three years.
The shuttle's jets cut off and space station latches automatically hooked onto the shuttle as the two traveled 17,500 miles per hour, about 220 miles above Earth.
Once the hatch was opened, European Space Agency astronaut Thomas Reiter planned to move his seat liner to the Russian Soyuz spacecraft attached to the space laboratory, marking his transfer to the space station's crew.
An hour before the docking, Discovery commander Steve Lindsey manually steered the shuttle's nose up and slowly flipped the spacecraft over so the space station's crew could photograph its belly for any signs of damage. It was only the second time a space shuttle has performed the unusual maneuver before docking with the station.
The space station's two residents, Pavel Vinogradov and Jeff Williams, planned to transmit the digital images back to Houston, where mission managers and engineers would study them. An inspection Wednesday by Discovery's crew using cameras attached to a 50-foot boom revealed no major damage from the launch.
"Great to see you out the window," Williams radioed to Discovery after the shuttle fired maneuvering jets and made its final approach to the space station several miles away.
Lindsey responded: "Good to see you, Jeff. We're proceeding along normally. You guys look great."
The pitch maneuver was performed for the first time during Discovery's flight last year, the only other shuttle mission since the 2003 Columbia disaster.
Columbia had been damaged by a chunk of hard insulating foam that fell from its external fuel tank during lift off. All seven astronauts died when fiery gases entered a breach in the wing during re-entry.
Flyaway foam remained a concern during Tuesday's Discovery launch. Photos showed two areas of small foam loss around the ice frost ramps on Discovery's external fuel tank, but NASA managers said the foam loss was too small and occurred too late in the launch to be a danger to the shuttle.
Wednesday's inspection by the astronauts uncovered a thermal tile filler poking about a half-inch out of the belly of Discovery. Deputy shuttle program manager John Shannon said better data should be available later Thursday but for now, engineers do not believe the dangling fabric will pose a danger for re-entry or require repairs. Last summer two similar strips had to be removed in orbit.
The Discovery crew awoke Thursday to a recording of Elton John's "Daniel," a choice of Reiter's wife and two sons.
Reiter, who has a son named Daniel, will spend six months living on the space station. The crew's size had been reduced to two in the years after the Columbia accident when NASA's shuttle fleet was grounded; Russian vehicles weren't large enough to keep the space station supplied for more than two people.
The mission for Discovery's crew is to test shuttle-inspection techniques and deliver supplies to the international space station. Astronauts Piers Sellers and Michael Fossum plan to carry out two spacewalks, and possibly a third, which would extend the 12-day mission by a day.
http://www.wfaa.com/sharedcontent/dws/w ... ef9fd.html
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