Image Credit: NASA/Smithsonian Institution/Harold Dorwin
Space Shuttle Discovery Flown Over the U.S. Capitol
Space shuttle Discovery, mounted atop a NASA 747 Shuttle Carrier Aircraft, is seen as it flies near the U.S. Capitol, Tuesday, April 17, 2012, in Washington. Discovery, the first orbiter retired from NASA’s shuttle fleet, completed 39 missions, spent 365 days in space, orbited the Earth 5,830 times, and traveled 148,221,675 miles. NASA will transfer Discovery to the National Air and Space Museum to begin its new mission to commemorate past achievements in space and to educate and inspire future generations of explorers.
More astounding photography of the flight available via Jeff Malet.
Just gorgeous. I saw it once in person while I was stationed at Columbus AFB, Mississippi. Our runway was barely big enough to accommodate a 747. It was magnificent to see.
Say goodbye to that “vision thing”. NASA’s entire budget, about $19 billion annually, is less than two months’ “supplemental appropriations” for the useless wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Heck, in its FY2013 slideshow the Defense Dept. thinks it can save almost a third of that with “better buying practices”.
Yet somehow, in the almost thirty years the Shuttle was in use, we could never fund a replacement.
Cujo, have you found that land where we can start a new country?
Maybe you can look into Uncle Newtie’s thug-free moon colony.
I’ve expanded on that theme a bit.
You go on, we’ll stay and try to make this one better.
Were you able to see it Taylor? I saw a video earlier as it passed the Washington Monument. Beautiful.
While I sat glued to my TV watching CNN’s broadcast of Discovery’s final flight, I just couldn’t get over this feeling of anger at what President Obama has done to our space program. As everyone here knows full well I am generally a strong supporter of President Obama but the decision to retire the shuttle fleet is one of his decisions that I seriously disagree with. Space-X is suppose to take over flying people and supplies to the ISS but that company’s rocket isn’t their yet and there is the possibly of tech problems and delays. Science doesn’t work on a schedule. The shuttles shouldn’t have been retired until Space-X had a proven reliable vehicle to get American astronauts into space. This President who ran as a pro-science President has put this country in a position that it hasn’t been in 50 years. Americans now couldn’t put a man in space even if we wanted to. The country that split the atom and went to the moon six times 40 years ago is now earthbound for at least the next four years maybe longer.
Great post solo!