Gulf Coast at night
On Tuesday, the International Space Station celebrated 10 years of continuous manned presence in space. 10 years! Pretty amazing. As a shuttle person, I’ve been guilty of mostly ignoring the ISS. It doesn’t go up and down, there’s no fire and smoke and noise. In the rendezvous world, we think of the ISS as just one big docking target, and jokingly refer to undocking as “jettisoning the ISS payload.” But as I transition into my new job for the next year, I’m having to learn a lot about the ISS, and I’m viewing it in a whole new light. It’s an amazing vehicle in its own right.
At the moment, I’m twiddling my thumbs as I wait for STS-133 to get off the launch pad. (I’m not literally twiddling my thumbs, but you get the idea.) As the launch continues to slip in maddening 24-hour increments, I’m starting to realize how lucky I am to have seen a launch each time I’ve tried. I saw STS-86 in September 1997 with a huge group of co-ops, STS-91 in June 1998 with two of my good co-op friends, and of course STS-130 back in February with my family. Three trips to KSC = three launches.
I’m crossing all my fingers and toes for good launch weather tomorrow afternoon in Florida!
You ARE lucky to have seen those — I had some friends who drove from Atlanta to Florida THREE TIMES in an attempt to see a launch!