Discovery is scheduled for a 5:30 a.m. landing to undock from the space station at 05:30 tomorrow morning. The NASA Shuttle site has some details.
But really, not very many details. Tom’s Astronomy Blog has more and better info than the NASA site (and he followed up, too). Evidently the repair of a damaged ISS solar panel was quite the story, but the NASA site hardly mentions it. Instead, they have an article on the light saber that went into space.
NASA? You there? You listening?
You guys have to figure this web stuff out.
Some parts of NASA have; the science and astronomy sections I frequent are usually really good, if not outstanding. But the manned stuff is typically bland and behind the times. I can’t imagine it would be that hard to find someone at KSC who could spend an hour a day to write up a nice story about the events of the things that, y’know, eat up 40% NASA’s budget.
November 4th, 2007 at 10:06 am
Machines should fly in space and we should revel in the data from our little blue planet.
November 4th, 2007 at 10:11 am
Phil, you’re too fast
They will UNDOCK tomorrow at 5:30 a.m.
Landing is scheduld for “Nov. 7 @ 1:02 p.m. EST” (http://www.spaceflightnow.com/shuttle/sts120/status.html).
November 4th, 2007 at 11:04 am
“NASA? You there? You listening?”
Scott Carpenter said something similar yesterday. He also said, “don’t fear, China is looming,” or something like that.
Yes, Scott Carpenter, one of the 2 surviving Mercury Astronauts talks about how the public doesn’t care what NASA is doing and I think of the Bad Astronomy guy. OOOOOooh, what is this world coming to? LOL
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v293/kgiraffe25/DSCF1603Small.jpg
My boy got to shake the hand of his hero, John Glenn, yesterday.
November 4th, 2007 at 11:14 am
They do mention on NASA’s site about how the shuttle and ISS will be visible in the sky shortly after they seperate. It’ll happen Monday morning. There’s a link to find out what time they’ll be overhead.
I’m fortunate to only have to get up at around 5:40am to see this event.
I don’t suppose NASA could afford to hire someone for the sole purpose of managing the website and providing lengthy articles, could they?
November 4th, 2007 at 11:23 am
Not unlike the program itself. Ooh, too easy.
Yet I still watch every launch and every landing.
November 4th, 2007 at 11:31 am
Ringo,
I disagree, humans should fly in space too. We just need to find a cheaper way to do it. Hey, I know, disposable rockets! The throw-away concept works great for consumer products.
Seriously though, the whole idea of a reusable shuttle was to make space travel less expensive. Instead they’ve ended up with the most expensive way yet invented. That’s government for you.
November 4th, 2007 at 11:35 am
Humanity has no place in space. The future belongs to the robots.
But even overlooking the inevitable doom hanging over the human race, NASA still isn’t putting humans up there for even the relatively-useful things they could be doing. The serious work of science by and large isn’t being done by our manned programs. It’s the unmanned programs that reap the bountiful harvests of data.
There’s really not much worth paying attention to, here.
November 4th, 2007 at 12:14 pm
Well, ironically, I misread the NASA site, and fixed what I wrote. I guess I have to figure some of this web stuff out too.
November 4th, 2007 at 12:58 pm
Humanity has No place in Space?
The Future belongs to the Robots?
Sounds to me like Something a BORG would say. Beware the Borg on Bad Astronomy!
Humans are the rightful Heirs of THIS Solar System!!!
November 4th, 2007 at 1:19 pm
A long time ago they put a Crew Activity Report video on the web every flightday during a Shuttle mission. You can still find them on http://spaceflight.nasa.gov/gallery/index.html . I thought they were excellent.
November 4th, 2007 at 1:23 pm
Bad Astronomer: I was fortunate enough to watch the STS-120 launch from KSC as a guest of a crew member, Italian astronaut Paolo Nespoli. An unforgettable experience, both scientific/technological and human. As cool as cryogenic propellants.
It turned out that I was probably watching the launch from the same stands where the school kids who named ISS Node 2 “Harmony” were sitting. NASA took a picture of the group: http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/behindscenes/student_visit.html
In the large version of the photo, I am sitting just below the blonde lady to the right of the guy with red shirt, hat and glasses on the topmost row, standing in front of the fence. Like most of the European guests, I am wearing the unofficial uniform put together with ESA-ASI gifts: blue polo shirt and hat with the Esperia logo.
Somewhere behind me was sitting a Grumman employee who worked on the LM. Did I mention that this was an unforgettable experience?
Speaking of enthusiasm for space flight, I also had the privilege of meeting Damaris Sarria (sounds familiar?) together with a group of other Italian friends who are also space enthusiasts. She tells about the meeting here: http://damarisbsarria.blogspot.com/2007/10/i-miei-nuovi-amici-italiani.html
November 4th, 2007 at 3:34 pm
Watching the solar array repair live yesterday was the best reality tv ever. Keep in touch with much at: http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/nasatv/index.html
November 4th, 2007 at 5:19 pm
Ooo, this might be interesting. The ISS makes a visible pass horizon to horizon tomorrow morning at 05:50 EST, very soon after the undock, and a magnitude of -2.1. Time to get the camera on the POS scope!
Now let’s see if I can avoid screwing it up like I have before…
November 4th, 2007 at 6:27 pm
I’ll just be using old fashioned eyes, Mark 1, for seeing the ISS/shuttle passage.
Too bad my ’scope isn’t with me now, or I’d oogle at Saturn and Mars before the big show.
November 4th, 2007 at 7:55 pm
OneHotJupiter, not humans, Cetaceans. Dolphins and whales buddy, dolphins and whales.
November 4th, 2007 at 8:29 pm
Both robots and humans, public government space agencies and private ones have a place in space!
NASA - for its flaws and faults has accomplished a huge amount & deserves due credit & our respect.
I for one will always appreciate and be grateful for :
- The first people in space (together with the then Soviets)
- The Apollo Moon progra and landing
- The Viking landers, Mars rovers and other Martian missions.
- The Voyager grand tour esp. the 1989 Neptune fly by that really got me into astronomy..
- The space shuttler, ,yes the shuttle, even withits problems for we forget how magnificent NASa’s reusable spaceplane really is.
- The Hubble Space Telescope
- The Cassini and Galileo missions
& much, much more …
That said, yes I wish they were better with net PR and bolder and more adventurous in vision.
November 4th, 2007 at 8:30 pm
Crux Australis - you’ve been reading / read David Brin’s ‘Startide Rising ‘ novel too then?
November 4th, 2007 at 8:43 pm
For all the knocking of public owned government space agencies & promotion of private enterprise, NASA has taken us to all the planets and landedon Titan too, is en route to the dwarf planets and hassnet probes beyond our solar system while private enterpirsehas only managed a handful of sub-orbitakl flightsand few space tourists on govt craft.
Private may .. just may … be the way of the future but it has an awefully long way to catch up.
As I said before, we all owe NASA a lot more credit respect and apprecaiation than it generally gets.
November 4th, 2007 at 10:29 pm
*whew* glad you changed the time on that landing. that annoying machine rattles the windows when it passes overhead, and 5:something am is just way too early for the double sonic boom alarm clock to go off. (of course, with the time change the toddler alarm clock is likely to go off then anyway, but a bowl of cereal puts that on snooze for a little while.)
November 5th, 2007 at 5:42 am
I came, I saw, I reveled.
I didn’t see two seperate points of light, but it was still awesome.
It looked like a moving light as bright as Jupiter.
Even cooler (aside from the weather) was the array of stars, such as Orion.
The moon and Venus made a lovely couple. Saturn and Mars lined up above them. I think I saw Comet Holmes. Hard to tell, as I’m not totally familar with all the stars in constellations. Plus, I’m in a light polluted area.
All I can say is “What a way to start the morning!”
I hope others have managed to glimpse at this.
November 5th, 2007 at 7:52 am
I agree with you Phil. I have watched Nasa TV during six or seven launches so far and every time I have tried to find real-time information on Nasa’s mission website (currently STS-120). Man, they never report real-time and every time they report, there are just few lines to read. Good to know that Tom’s blog reports better!
November 5th, 2007 at 8:24 am
I just saw ISS and Shuttle, separated by a few degrees, cruise the skies over Victoria, BC, Canada. WOW! Although I’m an avid ISS watcher and rarely miss a sighting opportunity never before have I seen the two spacecraft separate, but traveling together. I had to climb to the roof because the max elevation was only 13 degrees and the approach and departure were in the south. So, the roof gave me a better view. It was so cool! A great way to start the week.
I think humans in space is a good idea. I doubt a robot can express the emotion of seeing the Earth from space, and, imho, seeing the Earth from Space is one big reason why we go to space.
November 5th, 2007 at 8:40 am
Grand Lunar said, “All I can say is “What a way to start the morning!â€
I hope others have managed to glimpse at this.”
Great viewing conditions here, and yes, a good way to start the day off. Later on, the lack of sleep might have some say in the matter, but for now…
Couldn’t get the camera coordinated to the telescope, so I went with a zoom telephoto lens at 1000mm instead - probably unable to resolve any real detail (I’m one of those binariphobes who still uses film, so I won’t know for a few days). Briefly as it rose, I could have sworn I saw two distinct points of light, but never saw that within the viewfinder, so I’m supposing it was a trick of my glasses. But very vivid and distinct, and moving fast. I waved, but didn’t see a wing waggle in return…
Venus illuminating one side of the moon was nice, and the predawn glow here was quite colorful. Did I see all four planets visible this morning? Not sure, but I know I spotted at least three. The comet was disappearing in the twilight by that time.
So, tomorrow will we get a chance to see the shuttle and ISS separately? Heavens-Above doesn’t have the shuttle details yet.
November 5th, 2007 at 1:38 pm
>> Humans are the rightful Heirs of THIS Solar System!!!
Speciesist.
>> OneHotJupiter, not humans, Cetaceans. Dolphins and whales buddy, dolphins and whales.
Speciesist.
I for one welcome our cybernetic overlords. Metal is better than meat!
November 5th, 2007 at 4:50 pm
NASA Website is guarded by headquarters
The field centers lost the ability to post independently after the Bushies came in.
It is improved from the time of the Deutsch fiasco, when there was a main web page glorifying Bush and not much else. It still doesn’t look like the field centers have much autonomy at present. So don’t expect fast updates.
Don’t blame NASA. Plan the politicos.
November 5th, 2007 at 11:35 pm
I saw the Space Shuttle and ISS on Guy Fawke’s Night here in New Zealand. They went over us on Petone beach at about 9:45 pm. I grabbed my friend’s twelve-year old brother and pointed at it, asking whether he realised that there were actually other humans inside that dot up there, and whether that blew his mind. He said it didn’t. Ah well.
November 6th, 2007 at 5:25 am
Once again, I saw the shuttle/ISS pair.
This time, they were fairly well apart. I looked like one star trailer the other. Too cool!
It wasn’t anywhere near the view on Monday, as they were low to the horizon. But it was cool, nonetheless.
Now that I know what to look for (aside from one occasion with Mir, I’ve never deliberately looked for shuttle/space station viewing times), I can only wonder how many times I must have seen a bright light like this, and thought it a plane.
I guess I’ve got myself a new hobby and a new thing to look forward to waking up to!