Shuttle lands safely in Florida

Source: CNN

KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, Florida (CNN) -- The space shuttle Endeavour came home a day early on Tuesday after NASA decided to cut short its mission in case Hurricane Dean shut down Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas, which directs the shuttle's re-entry and landing.

The shuttle touched down at Kennedy Space Center at 12:32 p.m. ET, 12 days after its departure on a mission to help assemble parts of the international space station.

NASA made the decision Saturday to bring the shuttle back early, when forecasts for Dean showed the storm could veer to the north in the Gulf of Mexico and possibly force an evacuation of Johnson Space Center.

But Dean, now a Category 2 hurricane, has stayed well to the south, passing over the Yucatan Peninsula early Tuesday.

Read more: http://www.cnn.com/2007/TECH/space/08/21/space.shuttle/index.html

Source: CNN.com

KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, Florida (CNN) -- The space shuttle Endeavour came home a day early on Tuesday after NASA decided to cut short its mission in case Hurricane Dean shut down Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas, which directs the shuttle's re-entry and landing.

The shuttle touched down at Kennedy Space Center at 12:32 p.m. ET, 12 days after its departure on a mission to help assemble parts of the international space station.

NASA made the decision Saturday to bring the shuttle back early, when forecasts for Dean showed the storm could veer to the north in the Gulf of Mexico and possibly force an evacuation of Johnson Space Center.

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Last week, NASA managers determined that the crew would not have to repair heat shield tiles that were damaged 58 seconds after the August 8 liftoff, when a piece of insulating foam fell off the external fuel tank, ricocheted off a strut and hit the underside of the orbiter just below the right landing gear door.

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Read more: http://www.cnn.com/2007/TECH/space/08/21/space.shuttle/index.html

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Woo-hoo!

:woohoo:

I have been worried about their return. Glad it all went well.

Mz Pip
:dem:

http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/shuttle/main/index.html

(Photos of the damage available through this page.)

Now let's get the damned heat tiles FIXED!

Where's the "Yankee ingenuity" - something we've always been famous for?

Most revealing, isn't it, what happens when most of the country thinks we've veered off in the wrong direction, a war is sapping our energy and psyche, we're divided as a nation and fighting among ourselves, and a national malaise settles upon the population. Most instructive as to how that huge contemporary undercurrent sucks the lifeblood out of our souls and leeches away the creative juices that could be brought to bear for solving problems like this.

and those tiles are probably one of them. There isn't much one can do with a bad design except do a redesign, taking into account the lessons learned in the previous attempt.

That could so easily have been such a disaster with the damage on the underside.

This couldn't have been easy on them.

I couldn't stand to actually watch the reentry on TV. I guess they knew what they were doing by not fixing the tiles. At least that's what I choose to believe.

Their spacesuits failed on each walk with ripped gloves. This was not a good situation. Thankfully nobody was killed. Why are we still flying those things?

or 10.

Damn land falling Cat 5 Hurricane distracted me. x( :silly:

:applause: :applause: :applause: :applause: :applause:

they landed safely! Give Grace to DOG!

It was a very impressive noise, shook my house! I'm glad they made it back to Earth safely.

Now scrap it or put it in a museum and move on to a new design before another one explodes.