Re: The Shuttle is Flying!
 

Tonight in the New York area, FORMOSAT 3 rise in the in the North North Eastern sky around 9:05 ish and leave in the East North Eastern sky around 9:25 ish. Don't expect this to be fully correct. For this is in the New York area without any specific towns, so it's very ruff.

Re: The Shuttle is Flying!
 

The NASA video. Or at least I thought I heard it that way. Guess I wasn't paying attention to closely.:o I'm glad my observation intuition was better than my listening.

Re: The Shuttle is Flying!
 

The Shuttle is Still Flying! Bad weather has forced the shuttle to stay out one more day. Lucky for us! We might get one more chance to see the flyover! It looks like there will be a significant distance between the two, maybe even up to a minute apart.

So I haven't had a chance to get to a computer which will allow me to watch the crew in action. What do they do with an extra day? Are they all sitting around twiddling their thumbs? Bouncing off the walls? :rolleyes:

Re: The Shuttle is Flying!
 

Maybe they leave the bouncing to us on the ground -

http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/sh...ain/index.html
This might give you something to look at for a little while. :)

Re: The Shuttle is Flying!
 

Getting ready to land at Edwards! The convoy of equipment is parading out. KFC -- er, KSC is too cloudy and rainy to land. 3:49pm EDT landing.

In the history of commercial airplanes, which probably has the closest parallel to spaceflight, there were the pre-commercial flights -- rich (or maybe stupid) people that needed to get from one far place to another. Then the "named" flights. I have a Peter Whimsey book where he flew from the US to UK at the very last minute to save the day. "I took the Victoria," he said, and everybody acted like they knew exactly what the Victoria's schedule was. Then flights became more common, but you got dressed up and it was exciting and you were treated like a king. That eventually went into numbered flights, and rushing to catch the plane and cattle cars and all the rest. (We'll gloss over the dark cloud it has currently become.) My grandmother was born in the Wright Brothers era, and flew (probably her first time) in the 1960s, and loved it, visiting all her relatives that way.

The Shuttle is still in Whimsey's day -- the Atlantis is coming in, depending on the weather, he would have said. Rich people can book a flight, but only for special reasons. Someday it'll be like 2001: A Space Odyssey, expensive but commonplace, like my grandmother travelling cross-country to far-away California.

I hope I don't have to wait too long.

Re: The Shuttle is Flying!
 

It's Landed! I'm kind of bumed to not have heard the BOOM though...

Re: The Shuttle is Flying!
 

They're baaaaack!

Wheel stop was about 45 seconds ago. :D

Re: The Shuttle is Flying!
 

And they're still on page 5 of the manual.

Now comes the long wait for an open slot at a gate.

Re: The Shuttle is Flying!
 

It took about an hour for the "gate" to come to them and be loaded. I am pretty sure that that was more like section 5, page___.

Re: The Shuttle is Flying!
 

I'm really glad to hear that it landed in California, mainly due to the fact that last November I got to sit in the captains seat of the airplane that "piggy backs" the shuttle back to Florida. In the pic is Rufus Cochran (447) and myself.

Re: The Shuttle is Flying!
 

The shuttle finally made it back to KSC.

Next flight is August 7th!

Re: The Shuttle is Flying!
 

ugh. I am Disappointed it landed in California... I love the sonic booms... even worse I got to work 20 minutes after the 747 landed at the landing facility. Oh Well, Rollout (of the vehicle assembly building to the launchpad) for Endeavor will be next Wednesday. Can't wait to see Endeavor again, it hasn't been in space for over 4 years!

Re: The Shuttle is Flying!
 

Here's an older but still good picture of the Shuttle riding the back of a 747 (Astronomy Pic o' the Day).

Ha! Who says they don't have any fun? (wiki pic detail at attach point.)