Discovery Lands Safely in Florida

The Space Shuttle Discovery made a safe landing in windy Florida this morning.  This 39th flight of Discovery ends its career in space, with a total of 365 days in orbit.  Here are a few other highlights of this ship from Wikipedia:

• STS-41-D: First flight
• STS-51-D: Carried first incumbent United States member of Congress into space, Senator Jake Garn (R–Utah)
• STS-26: Return to space after Challenger disaster (STS-51-L)
• STS-31: Launch of Hubble Space Telescope
• STS-60: First Russian launched in an American spacecraft (Sergei Krikalev)
• STS-95: Second flight of John Glenn, oldest man in space and third incumbent member of Congress to enter space
• STS-96: First flight to dock to the International Space Station
• STS-92: The 100th Space Shuttle mission
• STS-114: Return to space after Columbia disaster (STS-107)
• STS-116: First night time launch of a shuttle since the Columbia disaster. Last Shuttle launch from LC-39B
• STS-131: Longest mission for this orbiter

As noted above, this ship made both of the return to flight missions following the Challenger and Columbia disasters.  It also launched the Hubble Telescope which has been providing spectacular pictures of our universe for many years.

There will only be one more Shuttle flight before the program ends.  After that, if we want Americans to fly in space, we'll have to hitch rides with the Russians or other countries.  That's kind of sad.

America's manned space program has been part of my life since I was very little.  Some of my earliest memories of TV are watching Mercury and Gemini launches in black-and-white.  I think we're making a mistake by not continuing some sort of manned program involving our own vehicles.