The Space Shuttle Discovery is now over the continental US as I write this, headed for a landing at 1:01 p.m. Eastern time in Florida. You can watch the event on NASA TV.
UPDATE: Shuttle has landed, everything looks fine.
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Phil Plait, the creator of Bad Astronomy, is an astronomer, lecturer, and author. After ten years working on Hubble Space Telescope and six more working on astronomy education, he struck out on his own as a writer. He's written two books, dozens of magazine articles, and 12 bazillion blog articles. He is a skeptic and fights the abuse of science, but his true love is praising the wonders of real science.
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November 7th, 2007 at 12:00 pm
Yep, I just heard the BOOM! It was much louder than last time, and I’m 100 miles futher away. (In Jax instead of Orlando) I guess it could be because the air mass it more stable today. (Cool and clear, no clouds, etc)
November 7th, 2007 at 12:03 pm
Ka–Plop!
November 7th, 2007 at 12:03 pm
what a beautiful landing…. it looked so peaceful, just floating in… I love the internets, so that I can watch at work!
November 7th, 2007 at 12:04 pm
Man, my window was open and I just heard the boom; it made my blinds rattle….. strange and serendipitous that I would check this site to confirm my suspicions.
November 7th, 2007 at 12:04 pm
Damn, just missed it. It finished buffering and the shuttle was already down.
November 7th, 2007 at 12:04 pm
And landed!
It was wonderful watching the shuttle glide over the marshland surrounding the landing strip.
November 7th, 2007 at 12:10 pm
Thanks for the reminder. I’ve been meaning to watch a shuttle landing for years and now I have.
November 7th, 2007 at 12:10 pm
I dig how many of their wacky high-tech assistance vehicles are just modified used trucks.
November 7th, 2007 at 12:17 pm
Just got in from outside our Ed building here at KSC. What a beautiful day! And landing was superb! I always mentally compare the shuttle landing with the approaches I watch at Orlando Int’l as I drive by on the Beeline, and still am amazed at how steep and fast the orbiter comes down. But its always a great feeling when wheels stop and you know everyone is OK, and then to remember that three more humans are still up there!
November 7th, 2007 at 4:01 pm
Ahh, the space shuttle. Where the landing flare starts (long) before the 50-foot obstruction clearance margin.
November 7th, 2007 at 8:24 pm
I got a double sonic boom this afternoon a few minutes before it landed. I had no idea that this far north (Jacksonville) that I would get to hear it!
My wife thought something hit the roof, because it was rather directional, coming from the north east. And of course, being in the north east corner of the house, I got the brunt of it.
It was still cool.
November 8th, 2007 at 3:37 am
BA, I don’t know if you’ll read this and it’s only marginally on topic, but there’s something I’m curious about.
Instead of dropping the ISS into the earth’s atmosphere to burn up after it’s completed (which seems like a tremendous waste), has there ever been any consideration of strapping a few additional boosters to it and crashlanding it on the moon? Seems like you could get a useful fund of components and building materials out of it for a very low cost compared to the initial assembly cost of the beast.
I did consider the idea of just putting it in lunar orbit, but that raises problems with maintaining human presence on board and cost of constant resupply missions if it’s to remain functional.
I guess if I don’t get a response to this I’ll try and do some basic calculations myself and figure out the fatal flaw in my idea
November 8th, 2007 at 7:01 am
For you guys in Jacksonville…the shuttle came in on a descending node, or northern trajectory over the continental US this time. It was the first time since before Columbia; and thus the flight path was not too far from Jacksonville and Daytona. That’s why the booms were heard so well up in this area.