And I had completely forgotten that it justs "glides" in, without power, when it lands. That's mind boggling.
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8.21.2007
The Shuttle Just Landed - Safely
And I had completely forgotten that it justs "glides" in, without power, when it lands. That's mind boggling.
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Several years ago, my eldest son was stationed at and on one visit we saw a spectacular night launch, and on another visit we saw a daytime landing!
And during my career with IBM, I serviced the skylab computers in Building 30 (Mission Control) at Johnson Space Center, etc..! So I guess I have seen it all?
p.s.: We started our crusing on one of the Big Red Boats out of Port Canaveral about this time.
How is that breaking news?
Actually you can watch people do it every summer weekend at the Decatur airport. The only difference is the Shuttle is an enormously heavy glider with a horrible glide ratio.
By the way, the glider club at the Decatur airport enjoys having visitors stop by. They fly from 1:00pm to 4:00pm during nice weather (i.e. hot) weather.
12:33, it's breaking news because there was damage to the shuttle on takeoff, and NASA had to assess whether to risk it, or repair the damage (which also would have involved risk). In case you weren't paying attention a few years ago, or now, something similar happened a few years ago and a shuttle blew up right over our heads. You knew all that already? Then, you should know why it's breaking news.
We got to see a shuttle fly over us at night during re-entry several years ago - yep, right here in North Central Texas.......it was a huge fireball raging across the southern sky - it was awesome! By the time we got back inside and turned the TV on, it was landing in Florida.
Back in 1999 I was in Decatur when I saw what I thought was a huge firey meteor coming straight into Decatur from the southwest then as it got just south of town it turned eastward and was already landing in Florida four minutes later.
Another point about the shuttle being a glider - it is totally computer controlled during landing. We almost lost the first few shuttles when the jet jockey pilots couldn't resist grabbing the controls and bounced them in. They finally learned to keep hands off and landings have been very smooth since.
One morning a few years ago when the shuttle was scheduled to land, I was driving through East Texas and a flaming skull came crashing though my windshield. Kinda scary at the time, but it gave me a great idea for my new music video.
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