Space Shuttle Discovery Comes Home Safely
Space Shuttle Discovery certainly made itself known as it flew through clouds to land safely at Cape Canaveral this afternoon. There I was watching on TV from the comfort of my hammock and although I was expecting the sonic boom, it certainly startled me a little as it was one of the loudest I’ve heard in a long time.
It reminded me of around 15 years ago, shortly after buying my first home in Florida, I was lying in bed and heard the house shake. “Typical” thought I, “I’ve only gone and bought a house in an earthquake zone”. Fortunately it turned out to be a shuttle coming in to land but it was of those moments I certainly remembered.
The shuttle has been on a 13 day mission to take the last piece of the space station’s backbone, a $300 million girder containing the fourth and final set of the solar wing panels. Returning with the shuttle on this trip was Sandra Magnus who has spent the best part of four months at the space station carrying out her duties as a flight engineer.
So, that’s the first of five planned shuttle missions for 2009. Can’t wait to see the next missions…click here for my blog on the launch of Discovery on 15 March and click here for details of my trip to Kennedy Space Center.
