Whew! Finally!
Just finished watching Discovery fly into her final orbit. I still STILL get all jittery (post-Challenger nervousness) and excited like I felt as a little girl waiting for the final go/no-go calls. I don't care that the new Orion rockets are better -- which we won't see for a while since our President has rightly decided to spend the money doing other, more important stuff for now -- the shuttle is what I grew up with and I will remain loyal to those girls until the end. To me, there is nothing more amazing and gorgeous in flight today than watching the shuttle stack lift off from the pad.
I am concerned, however, in that just after lift-off, there was a chunk of insulation that flew off of the ET and down the stack. I'm hoping beyond hope that the engineers on the ground and the pictures from inspections in space will deem the event innocuous and clear Discovery for landing. I've always thought that the post-Columbia end-over-end flip of the shuttle so the ISS crew can take photos of her underbelly was really neat, but there's a definite reason for it this time. It looked to me like a chunk of insulation from where they patched the stringers (the part that was the main problem that kept Discovery grounded this long). I'm hoping that the way they patched the last two external tanks will hold up better when they fly.
Now that she's in orbit - just about to do another short orbital adjustment burn - I can relax and pay attention to other things again. I stayed up seriously late/early this morning to watch NASA-TV to see how the ET would hold up during and after fueling. Once they'd finished tanking and everything was nominal, I crashed to sleep for a few hours. I had set my alarm for 2:50 (an hour before launch). I didn't hear the alarm and only woke up with about 15 minutes to go. I was yelling at the tv when they had a no-go from the range safety guys because their display wasn't functioning properly. Thank goodness they did the manual look-around so Discovery would still be cleared for launch. I was telling Sis all this as she prepared to leave for school. She was preparing to leave with only 2 minutes left in the countdown. I said, "Don't you want to say to watch the launch?" (I'm surprised when anyone, really, doesn't find the shuttle launch interesting.) She said, "No... I really don't care." That the love of the space program didn't rub off on her like it did on me still boggles my mind.
Waiting for the post-launch press conference. Wonder if they'll say anything about the foam chunk...
In other news: MIGRAINE. Well, pseudo-migraine, the one caused by my face. I am so ready to go and have my nose fixed, I can't even tell you. That I would WANT to have my face broken and re-arranged on purpose is astonishing to me. I'm not really one for pain, and I know that the short-term swelling will end up making the headaches so much worse, but I'm hoping that the long-term benefits will be worth it. To wake up, go to sleep, and, well, LIVE without a constant massive headache would be amazing.
I've also been in a nasty fibromyalgia flare the past week or so. Not fun. That pain - what I can equate to the worst muscle/joint pain and weakness/fatigue you get when you have the flu, and what I imagine it would feel like if one was run over by an 18-wheeler - uses up all of my extra ability to cope with stress. This means that I'm the crankiest person ALIVE. It didn't help that we ran out of Lexapro on Monday. We're still waiting for our next batch to arrive in the mail. At least we were able to buy some from Walgreens as normal to make up the time.
And.... I've run out of stuff to say. I hope y'all are having a good time.
I am concerned, however, in that just after lift-off, there was a chunk of insulation that flew off of the ET and down the stack. I'm hoping beyond hope that the engineers on the ground and the pictures from inspections in space will deem the event innocuous and clear Discovery for landing. I've always thought that the post-Columbia end-over-end flip of the shuttle so the ISS crew can take photos of her underbelly was really neat, but there's a definite reason for it this time. It looked to me like a chunk of insulation from where they patched the stringers (the part that was the main problem that kept Discovery grounded this long). I'm hoping that the way they patched the last two external tanks will hold up better when they fly.
Now that she's in orbit - just about to do another short orbital adjustment burn - I can relax and pay attention to other things again. I stayed up seriously late/early this morning to watch NASA-TV to see how the ET would hold up during and after fueling. Once they'd finished tanking and everything was nominal, I crashed to sleep for a few hours. I had set my alarm for 2:50 (an hour before launch). I didn't hear the alarm and only woke up with about 15 minutes to go. I was yelling at the tv when they had a no-go from the range safety guys because their display wasn't functioning properly. Thank goodness they did the manual look-around so Discovery would still be cleared for launch. I was telling Sis all this as she prepared to leave for school. She was preparing to leave with only 2 minutes left in the countdown. I said, "Don't you want to say to watch the launch?" (I'm surprised when anyone, really, doesn't find the shuttle launch interesting.) She said, "No... I really don't care." That the love of the space program didn't rub off on her like it did on me still boggles my mind.
Waiting for the post-launch press conference. Wonder if they'll say anything about the foam chunk...
In other news: MIGRAINE. Well, pseudo-migraine, the one caused by my face. I am so ready to go and have my nose fixed, I can't even tell you. That I would WANT to have my face broken and re-arranged on purpose is astonishing to me. I'm not really one for pain, and I know that the short-term swelling will end up making the headaches so much worse, but I'm hoping that the long-term benefits will be worth it. To wake up, go to sleep, and, well, LIVE without a constant massive headache would be amazing.
I've also been in a nasty fibromyalgia flare the past week or so. Not fun. That pain - what I can equate to the worst muscle/joint pain and weakness/fatigue you get when you have the flu, and what I imagine it would feel like if one was run over by an 18-wheeler - uses up all of my extra ability to cope with stress. This means that I'm the crankiest person ALIVE. It didn't help that we ran out of Lexapro on Monday. We're still waiting for our next batch to arrive in the mail. At least we were able to buy some from Walgreens as normal to make up the time.
And.... I've run out of stuff to say. I hope y'all are having a good time.