Had to Share This

I got this photo of the space shuttle Discovery from a friend of mine.  It was shot this morning, and I'm assuming her daughter took it.  It's beautiful.  The shuttle goes up between May 15th and June 3rd.  Most of Florida can view shuttles taking off when it's a clear day.

Comments

[ricky]

I generally think Gregg Easterbrook is a moron. But this is a terrific article about the shuttle. He wrote it in 1980, long before the shuttle disasters. And it was pretty much on the numbers:

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2001/8004.easterbrook-fulltext.html

It's super interesting. And, like nearly everything the Air Force gets involved in, hairpullingly crazy and frustrating.

But it's a great story about why the shuttle turned out to be the biggest flop in NASA history. And, again, it was written before the thing turned out to be such a flop.

[Ellen]

Well, Ricky, I certainly won't be signing up for a ride...

Incidentally, the day I found out I was pregnant with Lisa was the same day the Challenger blew. All the kids out at recess could see the divided smoke streams way down here in Collier. It was pretty gruesome.

[Margaret]

It is very beautiful! The juxtaposition of light and dark is incredible.

[Kathryn]

Fantastic photo. And where have I been?--Until today I didn't even know that the Shuttle was set to launch.

[Ellen]

I just found out about the shuttle yesterday, so you're right in the news, Kathryn!

[cookie]

Great photo Ellen!

And that was a fun article Ricky!

My favorite part was
"Rocket engines are essentially explosions with a hole at one end. Exploding gases roar out the hole, shoving the rocket in the opposite direction."

And they mentioned something about a "thrust augmentation package" which I think might require more research.

[Faith]

I would give my left breast to see a shuttle launch. Make that both of them.

Beautiful picture.

[Tonya]

I agree with Faith! (The breasts are small anyway, nobody would miss them). I can't imagine the drama and sense of POWER of a launch. This picture gives me goosebumps. I sure do hope that nothing bad happens....

[Charlie]

When I was about 12 years old, my father took me to a test of an Apollo Saturn V rocket booster in Mississippi. They would lay them on their side with the top end buried in a small mountain of earth and fire them off. These massive flames would curve out and up like an exploding hockey stick. A moment or two would pass and then we would hear this huge sonic boom. The shock wave would hit and this two-story observation tower balcony we were standing on would start shaking like crazy. It was one of the coolest and most powerful things I have ever experienced. My dad was cool like that.