June 28, 2007—NASA is planning to fly Space Shuttle Atlantis back to the Kennedy Space Center starting tomorrow. This means bolting the spacecraft onto the back of a 747 jumbo jet for a cross-country piggy back ride. Once the vehicle is back in Florida, it will be prepared for this next flight in December, to carry up the European built Columbus lab for the international space station.

Flying the Shuttle this way is considered hazardous and the pilot and co-pilot on the 747 have ejector seats in case something happens. Shuttle carrier flights can be distracting for people on the ground as well. Back in the early 1980’s at the beginning of the Shuttle program, I was attending Brevard Community College in Melbourne. On two occasions, I nearly wiped out the family station wagon as Space Shuttle Challenger flew back on its 747 carrier plane right down the Indian River lagoon. To my untrained eye, it looked like the dual aircraft was barely five hundred feet above the water.