NASA Shuttle Discovery Set To Buzz Washington, DC 65
coondoggie writes "Barring bad weather, NASA said the space shuttle Discovery mounted atop the space agency's 747 Shuttle Carrier Aircraft will make a series of low passes — 1,500 ft. — around parts of Washington DC on April 17 between 10-11 am eastern daylight time." Discovery will be on its way to the Smithsonian from Florida; this is a rare chance in the post-shuttle era for people to still see a shuttle in flight; I'm planning a marathon drive to reach the parking lot at the Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center for what NASA's calling Shuttle Fly-In Day, in hopes of catching a glimpse.
Re:Showing off what was possible in times long gon (Score:5, Interesting)
So we have nothing to learn from the past? It's those very past glories that give incentive to keep improving so we can have that better future.
And I think it's pretty easy to compare the 70's to today. Let me give an example: 1970's had Led Zeppelin, 2010's has Justin Bieber. See, comparison is easy!
Back in 1987, over Montreal. (Score:5, Interesting)
I saw it back in 1987 over Montreal. Not only was it really neat to see the shuttle "in person", it was magnificent to see a 747 flying so low over my town.
If you're there, don't miss it!
Re:Headline (Score:4, Interesting)
I've watched many landings at KSC. Even here it's very difficult to see it. The way it lands is there is an imaginary cylinder in the sky that is tangent to it's path and the runway. It heads towards this at a predetermined altitude. When it flies into the cylinder it can be as high as 50,000 ft. It's a little speck in the sky and there is no vapor trail. It's glide slope is about 20 degrees and they basically fly it like they are trying to dive head first a couple hundred yards shy of the runway. At the last few seconds they pull into the flare. It's a pretty impressive thing to see.
http://wiki.ssm-fans.info/landing [ssm-fans.info]