September 15, 2006
Today’s Content Brought to you by NASA
I realize that this mission has been the butt of some jokes (hey, you try to grip a bolt in zero G with those thick gloves on, I bet you have a problem too) but they’re making amazing fast progress on the ISS. With a very long space walk, nearly 8 hours, the Atlantis astronauts got the new solar panels installed and operational. However, that’s not what’s been amazing me about this mission - its some of the photography that’s come back to Earth. I’m hoping the low res versions squeeze in to the layout - the linked versions are probably some of the most NSFD images i’ve put up here yet.
That’s Atlantis lining up to dock with the space station. See all that stuff in the cargo bay? That’s where they squeezed 18 tons of stuff to attach to the station. For a picture taken by a scientist, it has quite an artistic aspect to it. This could go down as one of my favorite pictures of an orbiter ever. If you look off to the sides of the delta wings, you’ll see stars in the background. Sure, there aren’t many, but look at how much sunlight is in the picture. I just like how this one picture shows off two things: first, how far our technology has come to allow us to construct habitats in orbit around our planet for the betterment of humankind, and it maintains the hint of how far we still have to go.
Oh, I bumped into another of NASA’s pics this week, one that’s just over 5 years old at this point. I realize I didn’t mention it on Monday, but then everyone else had it pretty well covered (except the president, or so I hear, I didn’t watch him, I did the smart thing and watched football.) Anyway, there was a picture taken of Manhattan from the ISS after the planes struck the twin towers (the linked image is also NSFD):
I realize that’s tiny, so click on it, trust me. It’s amazing to see how far the smoke trail leads, almost like a precursor to just how widespread the effects of the attack would be. There’s also some comfort in knowing that someone was watching from above. You can stop smiling Heather, I don’t mean god. I mean the astronauts that are on the next step of exploration, and getting us one step closer to getting off of this rock. Who wants to be down here with all the crazies?