Another crew of intrepid explorers "slipped the surly bonds of Earth" last night to rendezvous with the International Space Station:
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. - The space shuttle Endeavour and a crew of seven blasted into the night sky Friday, bound for the international space station and the most extreme home makeover project ever attempted by astronauts.Night launches are fairly rare and a pretty spectacular sight to behold. The actual footage of last nights launch is fairly pedestrian (while still extremely cool if you're a space nerd) but this archival footage of the same shuttle from last March is pretty sweet and set to Jethro Tull, no less: after the first 2 minutes you get to see the shuttle pull away from the cameras mounted on the solid rocket boosters; truly beautiful:The shuttle rose off its launch pad at 7:55 p.m. ET, right on time, in a brilliant flash of light visible for miles around.
“It’s our turn to take home improvement to a new level after 10 years of international space station construction,” commander Christopher Ferguson radioed before liftoff.
...Ferguson and his crew will double as kitchen and bathroom installers once they arrive at the space station Sunday, hooking up extra cooking and sleeping equipment so the station’s crew can expand next year. They will deliver a new refrigerator as well, giving residents much-desired cold drinks for a change.
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