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.