Space Shuttle Endeavour: Another Freighter's Mission in the News

After 'Remarkable' Night Launch, Complex Shuttle Flight Ahead"
Space.com (November 15, 2008)

"CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. - The brilliant blaze of NASA's space shuttle Endeavour as it rocketed into orbit under the light of a nearly full moon late Friday is just the beginning of a challenging, but vital, flight to the International Space Station (ISS), mission managers said. ...

"...'Very few things that we do beat a night launch,' said LeRoy Cain, head Endeavour's STS-126 mission management team. 'It was just remarkable right up and down the line.'

"But Endeavour's blast off is just the start of what promises to be a long, hard flight to outfit the space station and make repairs that will pave the way for larger, six-person crews to the outpost next year."

STS-126 Mission Update""
NASA Space Shuttle home page

It wasn't exactly a perfect launch: someone forgot to latch a door in the White Room. That's not as serious as it sounds. The White Room is part of the launch pad that astronauts walk through on their way into the shuttle. It's backed off from the shuttle during launch, and the launch controllers decided that letting that door bang around a bit wouldn't affect the shuttle.

The person on the launch crew who didn't secure the door said, 'I did it,' and won't be reprimanded, by the way.

Sounds reasonable.

Now, if only I could get a job there.

I spent my youth in the sixties and went to college in the seventies. It was a colorful period, and one that I'd rather not go through again.

Back then, I was a great fan of Star Trek, joined a march protesting American policy, and created a peace poster (okay, it was a peace symbol with four engine nacelles and the slogan "drop it," but it was a peace poster).

Not much has changed, actually. Having memorized most of the original series takes some of the fun out of watching Star Trek re-runs, but I still do it now and again. ("...where they'll be no tribble at all" - classic!) And I'm about as counter-counter-cultural as ever. (You'll see what I mean, if you read A Catholic Citizen in America.)

One thing I did learn in my college years was the importance of being earnest. Not to be confused with the Wilde play by that title. Even now, decades later, I feel a twinge of sorts as I watch another freighter roar into space.

Recalling the values of my peers, back in those hallowed halls of ivy and other plant products, I recall that - by some standards - I could be spending all my time, agonizing over the plight of gray bats and emigrating Albanians.

But this is interesting, too, and I've learned that there's more to the universe than 'relevance.'

Related post:

• "Space Shuttle Endeavour's Night Launch"
  (November 14, 2008)