With Wings As Eagles: Craig P. Steffen's Blog

Mr Scott, There Will Be No Refit

2012 April 23 22:03

Last Tuesday, the Space Shuttle Discovery flew on its carrier aircraft from Cape Kennedy in Florida to Dulles Airport near Washington DC, where it will be housed at the Udvar Hazy branch of the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum.

Here they are taxiing out (I watched the takeoff on TV; the photos are of the screen)

And takeoff!



The Discovery is special for several reasons that I won't go into. She is currently the longest lived space vehicle that's ever returned to eath (space stations last much longer, but they don't re-enter intact). Discovery logged just over year in space total.

The other reason is when I visited NASA's vehicle assembly building, Discovery was sitting in one of the vertical bays awaiting transport:

(This photo is of me, with my mobile, with Discovery in the background, taken by someone else on the tour.) Sorry for the scruffy face. I'd planned to stay in a hotel the night before during my drive, but it seems that every hotel in the entire northern half of the state of Florida was booked that night, so I ended up sleeping in my car at a rest stop.