Returning Safely To Earth

Maybe it's a little geeky, but I absolutely love this footage of the space shuttle Discovery's landing last week. I like any footage of shuttle landings. Chunky though it is, I find something deeply aesthetically satisfying about the form of the shuttle, particularly as it returns its considerable bulk delicately to the earth.

I think the whole scene is beautiful, but would be terrifying if airplanes landed this way. The video, while nicely focused on the orbiter, fails to convey how quickly the ship falls out of the sky. I wonder how the average mission specialist, who is not a combat or test pilot experienced with odd angles of attack in an aircraft, copes with the steep descent. The aggressive dive is intimidating enough, especially since much of the crew has no view out of the shuttle, but they are also feeling gravity again for the first time in a couple of weeks. That must be a gut-churning white knuckle ride for a few minutes.

Unless something changes, we will only be treated to six more of these landings before the whole fleet is mothballed (and we place our manned space flight cababilities in Russian hands until the Orion program is ready in 2015 or later). The shuttle can't fly forever; I just wish it were to be succeeded by another sleek flying craft rather than a tin can that will freefall into the ocean.