"...We Have A Clean Bird."

Okay, so I'm a geek. I admit it. I was the kid who saw Star Wars about 20 times in the theater (pre-VCR era), tape recorded the audio from Battlestar Galactica episodes, and knew just about every useless trivial fact you could know about Star Trek, Star Wars and Battlestar Galactica. I loved lasers and photon torpedos, particularly for their ability to effectively annihilate whatever object seemed to be a problem at the time. Especially the Death Star. Man, to have some of THAT power around when the school bully came to pick on me! Or even a lightsaber. But I digress.

Photo Credit: NASA

This is a second for Discovery. For those of you who remember a bright summer day in 1988, it was the Shuttle Discovery that lifted off the pad amidst a cloud of flames and smoke, and roared into space. It was a fiery phoenix rising from the ashes of the doomed Challenger mission just two and a half years previous. Now, it is Discovery once again that rises to the occasion, climbing into space two and a half years after another tragic mission.

Even with some foam coming off of the external fuel tank, NASA believes that the orbiter is in good condition, free from damage. And getting that thing to do a backflip? How cool is that? I can't even do backflips anymore, and I probably weigh only 1/10,000th of what the shuttle does. Even in space.


And the backup plan?

Photo Credit: NASA

Tip your hat to Discovery's little sister, Atlantis, who is reportedly part of a contingency plan for rescue, should anything go wrong with Discovery, although a more probable plan would include 3 Russian Soyuz rockets rather than a second orbiter blast-off.

Okay, end of geek post.