March 19, 2008—With five spacewalks scheduled over the twelve days Endeavour is docked to the International Space Station, the astronauts are getting off-time to just look out the window.
Endeavour Commander Dom Gorie is pictured here next to one of the double paned windows of the Shuttle’s cockpit. Specifically, it’s one of the smaller windows at the back, affording a view into the cargo bay and of Spacewalker Rick Linnehan floating outside. No, my vision isn’t that sharp, Linnehan wore the spacesuit with the solid red stripes
Anyway, on to the “sight seeing”. Linnehan got a great view of
As great as the view of Earth is, according to the astronauts—there’s great and then there’s “great”. Inside the Shuttle, the windows are double-paned for safety. When astronauts go out on spacewalks, there’s just a thin, single visor between them and outer space. Crewmembers who go outside say the view is clearer and wider than when they get inside the Shuttle. Rookie spacewalkers are told to take thirty seconds, pick a certain landmark, and really burn it into their memories as a souvenir of the flight.
Onto other subjects, tickets are already selling fast for that fundraiser at Harvard. I’ve been asked to talk about my “Final Countdown: NASA and the End of the Space Shuttle Program” as the keynote for the Mount Washington Observatory’s Spring fundraiser in
http://www.mountwashington.org/events/boston/
Also, enjoyed meeting everyone at
More to come.
Photo courtesy of NASA |
|