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tourmalineI watched the hatch closing between the ISS and Discovery last night. Lots of hugs and handshakes preceding, lots of tributes to how awesome everyone's been. But it was so sad I thought - the camera in the ISS stayed on, as the hatch was closed and you could see the Expedition 17 crew (now including Greg Chamitoff) sorting things out. You only hear from them if they speak into a microphone or to the CAPCOM, but it was so eerily quiet, like after the end of a spectacular party.
The undocking happened earlier today, all went incredibly well I gather. Now it's heat shield inspection time, which with data interpretation and whatnot will take until tomorrow, with engineers on the ground working through the night. Meanwhile, the Discovery crew have some time out - ie talking to the press - before landing preparations begin. I saw today's Execute Package (FD 12) - in amongst all the techie acronyms and the medical stuff Garrett Reisman has to follow for his return to gravity, there are step-by-step instructions on how to alter the time zone on the laptops ("Right-click on the clock in the System Tray in the bottom right corner of the screen..."). This is for people with a barrelfull of postgrad science and engineering qualifications between them, remember, rather than a class full of eleven-year-olds in their first IT lesson. Also there's a note telling them to clear out their email inboxes as much as possible (this requirement alone would rule out several people I know from space travel).
NASA have some fabulous pictures of the mission and its preparations on their website - here - big and clear and just perfect for the desktop. I'd love to be able to share a screenpic from the program they use at Houston to show the shuttle's position over the Earth - flying upside-down, engines first, it looks like a giant moth :)
The undocking happened earlier today, all went incredibly well I gather. Now it's heat shield inspection time, which with data interpretation and whatnot will take until tomorrow, with engineers on the ground working through the night. Meanwhile, the Discovery crew have some time out - ie talking to the press - before landing preparations begin. I saw today's Execute Package (FD 12) - in amongst all the techie acronyms and the medical stuff Garrett Reisman has to follow for his return to gravity, there are step-by-step instructions on how to alter the time zone on the laptops ("Right-click on the clock in the System Tray in the bottom right corner of the screen..."). This is for people with a barrelfull of postgrad science and engineering qualifications between them, remember, rather than a class full of eleven-year-olds in their first IT lesson. Also there's a note telling them to clear out their email inboxes as much as possible (this requirement alone would rule out several people I know from space travel).
NASA have some fabulous pictures of the mission and its preparations on their website - here - big and clear and just perfect for the desktop. I'd love to be able to share a screenpic from the program they use at Houston to show the shuttle's position over the Earth - flying upside-down, engines first, it looks like a giant moth :)
