Discovery

What a story,Discovery lead the way to the space station 39 times without a problem we know about. Yesterday at 11.50am Discovery passed over our home and we heard the sonic double boom as it travelled to it's base at Cape Canaverol. We would have been able to see it but for the first time in days we had some cloud cover.

What a wonderful tribute to the brilliant minds and precise computers to see this spaceship make 39 round trips to the space station without a mishap. Travelling through space for over a year and making so many trips around the world puts this craft in a class by itself. I only saw one launch of a craft from this program and it was at night. It might have been the Discovery but the name was not important. I watched it from a rise in the land about 8 miles from the craft but it was close enough.

The sound was deaffening, the light so intense and the excitement of the on lookers so electric,  it left a pernament impression on my mind. This type of program although expensive , generates the type of motivation required to spur on our young minds to even greater heights. In a way this is the end of a chapter in space research and I can only marvel at the next stage.

Probably the station on the moon followed by a manned voyage to Mars would be a reasonable guess. In any case it was a special day for me to see the folks arrive home unharmed and technology taking a well deserved bow for the wonders it performed.