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| Sitting like a hero atop a Boeing 747 Jet ( referred to as "Queen of the Skies" or simply, a jumbo jet) [the] Discovery flew triumphantly from the Kennedy Space center in Florida to DC, made a final pass around the city as it made its way to it's new p.ermanent resting home, the Smithsonian NASM Udvar-Hazy Center in Dulles, VA. |
If you were lucky enough to be able to take off to see the shuttle at one of the designated "viewing spots" - ladee da to you! And ladee da to me as well because thankfully my work is located [pretty much] just outside of DC, where 3 groups of Pre-K's, teachers and I were able to witness this amazing site! It was after all, the LAST time this legendary, most flown spacecraft will ever fly!
I don't know about you, but I'm a HUGE nerd. [little known fact] I LOVE anything that has to do with space, space travel, science, etc so to be able to see this exciting, awesome site was, welll, somewhat exhilarating! The kids and I were jumping up and down clapping as it flew by us. It look liked it was on the road across the field so we had a GREAT view of it! We saw the jet that was accompanying it as well and I had to explain to the kids how big the shuttle actually was in order for them to understand why the plane was so small.
<---- in orbit just as it's losing the thruster.
The Discovery, which is named after two famous sailing ships, is NASA's third, leading and oldest surviving shuttle. It arrived at the space center in November 1983 and was launched on it's first missing on August 30, 1984. Some of it's greatest accomplishments are: The deployment and orbit with the Hubble Space Telescope for six years, accumulation of more than 39 missions in almost 27 years, the launching of the Ulysses spacecraft that explored the suns polar regions in 1990, 1991 the deployment of the Upper Atmosphere research satellite and making the first [successful] shuttle rendezvous (that's when two shuttles match their orbiting speed in order to create a link for potential docking/berthing.) Remember the part in "Armageddon" when the American ship connects to the Russian ship? That's basically what a shuttle rendezvous is.
All I know is; that thing is BEAST, and looks so dirty that I can just "hear it thinking": "finally I can rest and retire after all my hard work in space". It is pretty amazing to think that we have pieces of history like that at our disposal! if only more people took more interest in space study and the like! I wish I was good enough in math and not afraid of heights so that I could go into space! What a ride that would be!
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