Shuttle Discovery lands

[tagryn]

We heard the double sonic booms from the Shuttle passing through the sound barrier at around 5 AM on its way to Edwards AFB. I got up to watch the landing on CNN. Good coverage as usual, though it was a little creepy to see the long-distance IR camera shots reminicent of the Columbia images from the same camera. This is the first California landing for the shuttle since I moved out here, and its neat to have it so close, about a 45 minute drive away from where we're living now, although Edwards is closed to civilians so there's no prospect of going out to take a look at it. The shuttle took back 3 1/2 tons of refuse from the space station, which has some commenters saying it was nothing more than a glorified garbage run. A lot of that was junk, but according to NASA it includes 13 Russian 'Kurs' automated docking systems which have accumulated over the past 2 years from unmanned supply runs, a liquid electron (?) system, and the malfunctioning ISS gyroscope which was replaced on one of the spacewalks. All of those should be able to be salvaged to some degree, not a bad haul for one mission. And the ISS is fully stocked again, which should keep it for a while. Steven Den Beste is of the opinion that NASA should retire the shuttle now, and stop risking astronaut's lives. I'm closer to Rand Simberg's more hard-hearted approach that tragic as the loss of life is, in the grand scheme of things we're fairly well-stocked with astronauts. There are only three flyable shuttles left, however, so their conservation and preservation needs to be the #1 consideration, given that their replacements are still only on the drawing board right now.