Comments on: Shuttle lands tonight

By: Scorpious

Scorpious — Thu, 27 Mar 2008 16:44:47 +0000

Watched the final touchdown live on MSNBC while watching Countdown w/Keith Olbermann. He was talking about some US Senator by the name of McCain or McBush or whatever. All I do know is that it was a pleasant surprise to watch and I wish they had mentioned that they were going to do it or even that it had come down safely.

Oh, well.

Wish they would put some external lights on the shuttle.

By: JT Shea

JT Shea — Thu, 27 Mar 2008 13:05:27 +0000

I Live In Plam Harbor FL and We heard the Double Sonic Boom of the shuttles flyover arround 8:40PM ESTVery Very cool!

By: Grand Lunar

Grand Lunar — Thu, 27 Mar 2008 12:03:46 +0000

While I didn’t see the landing on TV or any other medium, I did HEAR it.
While my housemate and I were talking, we heard the double sonic boom. It startled us, as well as our neighbor. Then we realized what the noise was.
I should’ve known, as I heard the same noise during the previous landing.

By: Buzz Parsec

Buzz Parsec — Thu, 27 Mar 2008 03:34:29 +0000

Melusine -

Aug 28th, unless the external tanks are delayed. The tank for the next mission (May 24, the big pressurize part of Kibo) just arrived at the cape. It was late but they expect to be able to launch as scheduled. The next flight is the Hubble repair mission, but they need to have 2 tanks on hand, as a second shuttle will be standing by (on the other pad, I think) in case they need to launch a rescue mission. If the Hubble mission goes okay, they’ll just swap in one of the cargo containers and launch the 2nd shuttle to the ISS, in October. After that they plan to launch the final set of solar wings in December and the last piece of Kibo early next year.

However, this all depends on having two tanks delivered to the cape and ready to launch by August, and they are having problems getting them ready, so according to spaceflightnow.com’s web site, they expect at least some of these flights to be delayed.

Makes you wonder what would have happened if there hadn’t been that hail storm last year that delayed everything 4 months? Would they have launched Endeavor 4 months ago and would we currently be in the middle of a big hiatus waiting for today’s UPS man with the tank for May’s flight?

The factory where they build the tanks was badly damaged by Katrina, but I don’t know if that’s still a factor. Also, they are planning to build the 2nd stage of the Ares I and the 1st and 2nd stages of the Aries V at the same plant. Just sayin’.

By: Melusine

Melusine — Thu, 27 Mar 2008 03:17:31 +0000

So glad for another safe/successful mission. Yay! I’ve lost track – how much closer are we to the Hubble repair?

By: tim

tim — Thu, 27 Mar 2008 02:54:52 +0000

I just happened to be at a hotel across the bay from KSC tonight, so I got to see the landing. Or rather, I got to hear the double sonic boom (holy wow, that’s an awesome sound) and then peer into the night sky trying to tell the difference between chase planes and the Orbiter.

We saw ISS go right overhead a few minutes before the Orbiter landing, though, which was nifty.

By: Tensor

Tensor — Thu, 27 Mar 2008 02:27:14 +0000

I just got home from a friends house, the double sonic boom of was clearly audible here in northern Sarasota. My host jumped up thinking something had hit his house, then relaxed when I told him the shuttle was coming back.

By: EdSG

EdSG — Thu, 27 Mar 2008 01:13:44 +0000

Watched the landing a minutes ago. It was just great!!

The only weird thing was the Auxiliary Power Unit was venting fumes, and all the chat room freaked out a little bit

By: Celtic_Evolution

Celtic_Evolution — Thu, 27 Mar 2008 01:07:18 +0000

Welcome home, Endeavour!

By: bigjohn756

bigjohn756 — Thu, 27 Mar 2008 00:55:20 +0000

I know, but flames near an aircraft always make me nervous. APUs on regular aircraft are just small jet engines which make no flames and so I don’t get so anxious.

By: Michael Lonergan

Michael Lonergan — Thu, 27 Mar 2008 00:49:54 +0000

bigjohn, it’s supposed to do that. We just can’t see it when it lands in the daytime.

By: Heather

Heather — Thu, 27 Mar 2008 00:47:33 +0000

Great landing. Great job.

By: Mario

Mario — Thu, 27 Mar 2008 00:45:55 +0000

Last night (20:00) I was able to have a magnitude -2 view of ISS here in Miami,FL. Like 20 degrees behind Endeavor was shining as -1~-2. Amazing!

By: bigjohn756

bigjohn756 — Thu, 27 Mar 2008 00:43:35 +0000

Cool IR pic on NASA TV.

I wish they would put out that fire on top. It makes me nervous.

By: Philip

Philip — Thu, 27 Mar 2008 00:42:25 +0000

touchdown,

what a beautiful machine.

Nightlandings always show the APU exhaust nicely, the thing sounding like an old steam machine puffing away.

By: Michael Lonergan

Michael Lonergan — Thu, 27 Mar 2008 00:40:40 +0000

Always amazing to watch how they do that!

By: bigjohn756

bigjohn756 — Thu, 27 Mar 2008 00:40:21 +0000

The shuttle is down and wheels stopped.

By: Philip

Philip — Thu, 27 Mar 2008 00:29:23 +0000

Michael,

how many I have missed I can’t tell (53degNorth) and if there was a chance, clouds were dense. And I tried.
300mls to go.

By: Michael Lonergan

Michael Lonergan — Thu, 27 Mar 2008 00:27:01 +0000

Although there is a babe sitting in the Control Room! Woo Hoo!

By: Michael Lonergan

Michael Lonergan — Thu, 27 Mar 2008 00:25:12 +0000

You’d think they’d let them eat pizza at least.

By: Philip

Philip — Thu, 27 Mar 2008 00:17:22 +0000

Actually I’m more than disappointed that NASA is not able to provide a more exciting live report of the shuttle landing. There are so many possibilities of making the last handfull of landings a more involved experience. Doesn’t NASA want to “reach out” ?

Wouldn’t it be cool to have the controlroom screens not as blurry pictures but live to the sides of the streaming video in dedicated windows? Argh 20min of looking at people in the control room, picking their noses.

By: Michael Lonergan

Michael Lonergan — Thu, 27 Mar 2008 00:04:10 +0000

Philip, I was just going to say exactly the same thing! A few missions ago, Atlantis flew directly over my home just north of Vancouver. I couldn’t see anything though.

By: Philip

Philip — Wed, 26 Mar 2008 23:58:19 +0000

I have to admit that I find the stream a bit boring. 45 minutes of intermittend comments to endure to the real highlight, the LIVE pilots pov transmission of a spaceship landing.
Not too many left to catch anymore.

I wish they would transmit live the whole landing process from the shuttles cockpit.

By: Charles

Charles — Wed, 26 Mar 2008 23:38:53 +0000

De-orbit burn has been successfully completed, Endeavor is on her way home to KSC.

By: Michael Lonergan

Michael Lonergan — Wed, 26 Mar 2008 23:26:13 +0000

Just cleared for de-orbit burn.