Time Magazine has a story on the newly retired space shuttle Discovery: it spent a total of a year in space; was the shuttle that delivered the Hubble Space Telescope; and first flew in 1983: a long time in aviation terms, let alone a space plane. (In fact, it's kind of surprising that it handles the vibration of repeated launches so well, isn't it?)
Here's something I didn't know from the story; there are twin astronauts:
The [next] mission will be commanded by the husband of wounded Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, Mark Kelly. His identical twin brother Scott is currently the skipper of the space station; he returns to Earth next week on a Russian Soyuz spacecraft.
The
New York Times wrote about where the retired shuttles will end up. There is hot competition amongst various museums, but it seems the Smithsonian is sure to get one.
The Kennedy Space Centre wants one too. I reckon they'll need it, as the tourist value of that place while there's a big gap in developing a new manned rocket will likely diminish.
1 comment:
"Discovery will still hold the all-time record with 39 missions, 148 million miles, 5,830 orbits of Earth, and 365 days spent in space. All that was achieved in under 27 years."
Amazing stuff. I agree, how Discovery has lasted this long is testament to engineering ingenuity.
Or maybe just sheer dumb luck.
Good post.
Gab
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