Discovery to Return Home
The space shuttle Discovery is enroute to earth right now. In just a few hours, the 7 astronauts will be home safe….at least that’s what we’re all hoping. In light of the Columbia disaster, everybody’s a bit on edge. Let’s pray (light candles, send positive thoughts) that they make it home safe.
SPACE CENTER, Houston - After circling the Earth for 13 days, astronauts aboard space shuttle Discovery powered up their spacecraft early Monday and awaited word from Mission Control to fire their braking rockets and head for home.
Discovery, the first shuttle to return to orbit since Columbia disintegrated while re-entering the Earth’s atmosphere 2 1/2 years ago, was set to land at Florida’s Kennedy Space Center before dawn.
The crew from left to right back row; astronaut Andy Thomas, astronaut Charles Camarda, astronaut Wendy Lawrence and Japanese astronaut Soichi Noguchi. On the front row left to right; pilot James Kelly, commander Eileen Collins and astronaut Steve Robinson. (AP Photo/NASA TV)
In other news, Peter Jennings - the renowned ABC News anchor - lost his fight with lung cancer today. I remember my parents watching the news and watching Jennings. He was 67.
“Peter has been our colleague, our friend, and our leader in so many ways. None of us will be the same without him,” [ABC News President David] Westin said.
“He was a warm and loving and surprisingly sentimental man,” said Ted Koppel, a longtime friend and fellow anchor.
“No one could ad lib like Peter,” said Barbara Walters. “Sometimes he drove me crazy because he knew so many details. “He just died much too young.”
Jennings was the face of ABC News whenever a big story broke. He logged more than 60 hours on the air during the week of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, offering a soothing sense of continuity during a troubled time.
“There are a lot of people who think our job is to reassure the public every night that their home, their community and their nation is safe,” he told author Jeff Alan. “I don’t subscribe to that at all. I subscribe to leaving people with essentially — sorry it’s a cliche — a rough draft of history. Some days it’s reassuring, some days it’s absolutely destructive.”
