Space Shuttle Discovery
If you haven’t heard, NASA is planning its next space shuttle launch this July.
This will be the second shuttle launch since the Columbia disaster in 2003. Mission STS-121 has a launch window from July 1-July 19th, with a mission of providing a new crewmember to the International Space Station, and testing modfications to the redesigned external tank.
The Space Shuttle program is near and dear to my heart for two reasons.
One, I have always been fascinated by NASA and space - quite a few of the papers I wrote in High School and college were about the Space program. I still remember the Challenger accident in 1986 when I was running an errand for my History teacher and heard teachers announce the dreadful news. I remember when the shuttle program got back on its feet a few years later - skipping class in college to watch the launch. After the Columbia disaster in 2003, I remember watching the Discovery re-start the program again in 2005, this time with Tobey.
Two, when the space shuttle program is going strong, Kennedy Space Center is a busy place, and Cape Canaveral attracts bright engineers from all over the country who work on the shuttle, the IIS, and other related projects. When Kennedy Space Center is busy, our condo is much easier to rent - those engineers need a nice place to crash after their long days working!
NASA has announced that it will retire the current model of shuttle in 2010, which will be replaced by the Crew Exploration Vehicle (CEV) by 2014.