Shuttle Discovery Lands Safely

Tuxedo Jack writes "CNN and NASA report that the space shuttle Discovery has landed safely at Edwards Air Force Base in California. Concerns for its safe return were raised when spacewalks were necessary to repair the vehicle when external components were damaged; however, the shuttle landed safely with Commander Eileen Collins at the control yoke."

woman driver lands shuttle safely

[Sonicboom]

one small step for her - one giant step for womankind.

Good.

[42Penguins]

They finally decided to land after I woke up at both 4am Eastern yesterday and 5am today to watch it land, to no avail. I suppose they HAD to land sometime.

Good to know.

[GigsVT]

Eileen Collins

It's important that we have female shuttle pilots.

I mean, what if the core of the earth suddenly stopped spinning, and we needed to send a team down to jump start the core? If the core did that they could probably make a movie about the core doing that...

They could call it "The middle of the planet"... or something.

IM transcript

[kriegsman]

[5:11am]
MissionK0nTR07: wb
MileHighEileen: ty

-Mark

Re:Good.

[It doesn't come easy]

NASA engineers were having a decidedly difficult job picking a landing time that didn't correlate to your waking schedule...

Re:Cost of landing at Edwards..

[Nutshell_TA]

1 million dollars! muhahahha!

Re:Well

[Anonymous Coward]

Of all the negative moderations that could have been used, they had to choose "Flamebait" for that one.

Re:Almost Home

[chiph]

They UPS it overnight. ;-)

Seriously, they use the 747 like nearly everyone else has said. They've been doing it since the days of the Enterprise (the first shuttle, which was never certified for flight because of the destructive vibration tests it went through).

Chip H.

Re:Almost Home

[Adult film producer]

They launch it again, from california, with a sling-shot (the engineers have their own name for this device, I forget what it is though.) It gets up a few hundred thousand feet... then it glides across the country, purring like a gentle kitten the whole way through to florida.

Re:woman driver lands shuttle safely

['t is DjiM]

<evil>One million dollars</evil>

Re:Women Space Pilot

[Jackdaw Rookery]

Janeway got you hot and bothered?

You didn't really say that, did you? Really?

*Staggers off in shock*

No cost

[HomerJayS]

NASA will just cash-in the frequent flyer miles they accumulated during the fight.

They will need to work around the blackout dates however.

Re:Faith in humans et al made them safe

[Swervin]

I have faith in Jesus that my toenails will be clipped. . .well, now they're clipped. Thank you Jesus. (See how this line of reasoning works?)

Re:What an ordeal

[Cro Magnon]

"The shuttle just vented 11 mL of waste gas into space."

"Commander Eileen just burped."

Um, didn't you get the sequence of events reversed?

Re:Welcome home

[uberdave]

Well, if it is roughly egg shaped, about half a metre tall, with four leathery flaps that peel back to reveal a crablike organism with a long scaly tail and acid for blood, it might be a bad thing.

Re:woman driver lands shuttle safely

[operagost]

Eileen Collins who was "at the yolk".

Get in the kitchen and make me breakfast, woman!

Re:What was that?

[dr_dank]

The commentator on Fox News asked the same thing.

Then guest commentator James Dobson from Focus on the Family said "No! It's the holy spirit guiding them home, you liberal commie!" at which point Bill O'Reilly bust in and said "Shut up, shut UP! cut his mike".

Re:Welcome home

[Guppy06]

"Good publicity for them among people who want to see the space program continue."

This is Slashdot, where we believe the only thins that should be sent into space are robots.

Re:woman driver lands shuttle safely

[SupremeSpod]

>I am a 48 yo grandmother and feminist and I have been an engineer for 26 years. I was programming in C and assembly in the 70's when most of you sexist geeks were in diapers or not even born.

I bet you're hell to live with, haven't you got some pants to wash or shirts to iron?

Re:woman driver lands shuttle safely

[isorox]

Certainly beat's Deanna Trois attempt in Star Trek. In Generations, the first time she pilots the ship in 8 years and she crashes it into a planet. In Nemesis they give her another go and IIRC she rams it into a Romulan ship.

Re:Land the shuttle yourself

[porttikivi]

They say that to land the shuttle, you need an auto-pilot, a human pilot and a dog. The dog is there to guard, that the human pilot does not touch the control yoke.

Re:Waste

[karnal]

I believe digitalgroove is a waste of space. Thus far, there is little proven benefit to its being and the risks seem to greatly out weigh the gains. Is it important for digitalgroove to exist? I have no clue. Is it important to maintain the fate of digitalgroove? Absolutely! Are there billions of french fries spent on digitalgroove that culminate in little to no tangible results and / or benefit? Yes! Do the math....

Re:What was that?

[tgd]

Wow, how embarassing -- having something in common with a Fox reporter.

Re:Bogus physics on CNN ...

[Bushcat]

CNN is just chewing gums for the eyes. Unless you're stuck in a hotel room, why would you voluntarily watch CNN? They're the nipple pasties of the body that is international news. Well, you know what I mean.

Re:What was that?

[mav[LAG]]

Louis Armstrong?

I see skies of black
Black rocks tooooo
Tons of moon dust
and I see youuuuuuu
And I think to myself
What a wonderful weld...

Re:anyone else woken up by the sonic booms?

[nytes]

It definitely made me pop awake, and my wife woke up in a panic asking if someone was trying to break in to the house.

It took me a few seconds to realize "Oh, I guess they decided not to land the shuttle in Florida."

Re:What was that?

[shayne321]

or how he feels by being beaten to the surface by Louis Armstrong

Psshh. Everyone knows that Lance Armstrong was the first man on the moon. DUH!

Re:What was that?

[fredrik70]

I think he's made it pretty clear what he thinks of the moon hoaxers! [24.73.239.154]