Space Shuttle Discovery Returns to NASA Spaceport

space.com ^ | 8/21/05 | Tariq Malik

[FReepaholic]

The space shuttle Discovery returned to its home spaceport Sunday, landing at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center (KSC) after a weekend flight across the country.

A modified Boeing 747 jumbo jet ferried Discovery to KSC’s Shuttle Landing Facility at the orbiter’s Cape Canaveral, Florida home, touching down at about 9:58 a.m. EDT (1358 GMT) after a 2.5-hour flight from Barksdale Air Force Base in Louisiana.

[chimera]

It's an amazing job of copying. They even copied the piggyback part. Never let it be said that the Russkies are not good at imitating the creativity of others.

[Yollopoliuhqui]

Sniping at details does not make the essential point invalid- the space program is the greatest single concept peacetime science driver the planet has ever known. NASA is now the primary basic research institution in the country, bigger than MIT or Stanford or Los Alamos, etc. It has an entire devision dedicated to offering newly discovered technology and manufacturing processes to industry. Manned space exploration is crucial to the future of humanity, even if it's a hole card against cometary armageddon.

Walter

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[RightWhale]

The trick is to think in terms of space development. Gov't will never do this. The State would if its institutions were properly organized.

[mercy]

The space shuttle Discovery returned to its home spaceport Sunday,

NEVER TO FLY AGAIN

Geez Louize! What a fricking albatros!

What sort of viable space plane requires it's own private 747 to get around? How many million is that? How much per hour to fly the 747? Of course the 747 has absolutely no other function in life. How much to maintin this single use once every couple years 747? AND .... AND .... AND ...Its unsafe to fly.