Space/Science — HabitableZone

Space/Science » in reply to Gas Bills would be Hell

While driving home from work one day...

This fellow captured the Space Shuttle and its 747 transport jet flying
over Florida while driving and posted it on Spaceweather.com:

http://www.spaceweather.com/swpod2009/03jun09/George-Fetter1.jpg


Always have a camera handy is the lesson here. While driving past
Hollomon AFB one day on vacation in 1993, I had an F-117 stealth
fighter fly right in front of my car coming in for a landing. I did not have
time to get my camera out, but seeing that odd vehicle all in black against
a deep blue sky was something else.

The accompanying text on the Space Shuttle/747 photography:

THINGS YOU CAN SEE AT A TRAFFIC LIGHT: "Yesterday, I pulled up to a traffic light in Florida. Right there in front of me I saw the space shuttle flying across the sky on top of a NASA 747," reports George Fetter of Daytona Beach. "I'm just glad I had my trusty Nikon D50 sitting on my passenger seat!" His first shot caught the piggy-backed spaceship emerging from behind a green light.

Quickly, he pulled to the verge and zoomed in for a closer look. "It was Atlantis returning home to Florida from the Hubble repair mission (STS-125)," he says.

On May 24th, bad weather over Florida forced Atlantis to land at Edwards Air Force Base in California. That set the stage for a 2,500-mile cross-country ferry flight. Fetter spotted Atlantis near the end of the journey, less than an hour before it touched down at the Kennedy Space Center.

With the STS-125 mission finally completed, NASA's shuttle team is shifting its attention to the next flight, space shuttle Endeavor's STS-127 mission to the International Space Station. Among other things, Endeavour will deliver a new "space porch" for Japan's Kibo science lab. Experiments that require, e.g., hard vacuum can then be placed out on the porch for direct exposure to space. Liftoff is tentatively scheduled for June 13th.

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