Greeting the Shuttle Discovery

Posted April 17, 2012, 12:41 p.m.

So, if you live in the DC metro area (and don’t live under a rock) you are surely aware that NASA delivered Space Shuttle Discovery (OV-103) to Dulles International Airport this morning after a prolonged, low-altitude fly-by of much of the region. Discovery will replace Enterprise, the shuttle atmospheric test vehicle, at the Smithsonian Institution’s Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center (Air & Space Museum Annex) in Chantilly, Virginia.

Flying atop one of NASA’s Shuttle Carrier Aircraft (a modified Boeing 747) and flanked by a NASA T-38 trainer (erroneously referred to by the local media as a ‘fighter escort’), the craft made two fly-bys at Dulles before coming in for a landing. This is quite possibly the last time Discovery will ever fly.

Melissa and I had to drop off the Civic, which was recently damaged in a minor accident, at Chantilly Auto Body this morning. I had originally planned to find a closer spot to view the fly-bys, but horrific traffic made us late and favorable weather (presumably) made Discovery early . . . so I snapped a few shots from the auto-body shop instead.

I just barely caught the first fly-by, since I wasn’t completely prepared, then took some random shots of my surroundings while I waited for them to finish buzzing the rest of the metro region. I got some good, clear shots of the second fly-by. For the third and final fly-by, the actual landing approach, I put the camera down and just watched it. Very cool stuff. Photos below. . . .

2nd Fly-By: Getting Away

2nd Fly-By: Awesome

2nd Fly-By: Beautiful

2nd Fly-By: First Glimpse

Roof Observer

Roof Observers

T-38 Trainer

Silhouette

Incoming Plane

Melissa

Old Tree

Mudpit

Airliner

Melissa Arrives (Late)

Observing Couple

Staking Out a Good Spot

First Fly-By (Darned Trees)

Scott Bradford is a writer and technologist who has been putting his opinions online since 1995. He believes in three inviolable human rights: life, liberty, and property. He is a Catholic Christian who worships the trinitarian God described in the Nicene Creed. Scott is a husband, nerd, pet lover, and AMC/Jeep enthusiast with a B.S. degree in public administration from George Mason University.

Quotes

Neurotics expect you to remember all the things that they tell you, and many that they don’t.

Our characters are the result of our conduct.

The artist is nothing without the gift, but the gift is nothing without work.

I’m convinced that about half of what separates successful entrepreneurs from the non-successful ones is pure perseverance.

A great empire contains the amities and animosities of a world within itself.

Control your own destiny or someone else will.

In the world you have tribulation; but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world.

Our inner consciences scream with neuroses and psychoses, too, when we do not freely tend to the supreme goal for which we are made, namely, the life and truth and love that are God.

Nations are the wealth of mankind, its collective personalities; the very least of them wears its own special colors and bears within itself a special facet of God’s design.

Remind professional pacifists who have accepted the paralyzing peace propaganda of the Communists that the same Jesus who taught "love thy enemy" never advocated surrendering to him.

That is the surest proof of Original Sin and our fallenness. We all know that love is the key to happiness, and we all want more happiness rather than less, yet we love less rather than more.

The health and order of society depend on the rearing of healthy, happy, and well-integrated children. That is why law, though it may take no notice of ordinary friendships, should recognize and support marriages.

You only live twice: Once when you are born, and once when you look death in the face.

Some of these rights are said to be unalienable, such as the rights of conscience. Yet even these have been often invaded, where they have not been carefully secured, by express and solemn bills and declarations in their favor.

If you buy the story that everything terrible just happened on its own, with no personal responsibility on the part of the victim, you deny that person all agency. . . . In this manner, you strip him or her of all power.

So long as we have lots of warning, humans are astonishingly clever at solving problems, even enormous ones. So figure that into your predictions.

Every violation of truth is not only a sort of suicide in the liar, but is a stab at the health of human society.

Our world rewards action over inaction, at least in the average sense . . . the person who doesn’t try anything at all is unlikely to succeed.

I’m also honored to have the greatest temperament that anybody has.

In our civilization, and under our republican form of government, [intelligence] is so highly honored that it is rewarded by exemption from the cares of office.