Space Shuttle Shots.......

[YenkoYS-199Stinger]

I am very lucky to live 3 miles from NASA's Johnson Space Center here in Houston. Many of my friends and neighbors are either NASA employees or sub contractors. Pre Sept. 11th, thru my friends help, I was able to sit in the bleachers @ Kennedy Space Center in Florida with the family of the crew and watch one launch and 2 landings. It was an experience that I will never forget. Everyone thinks the launches are impressive--they are, but the landings are better. You go out to the bleachers 1 hour before landing and sit and wait. You are approx. 150 yards from the landing strip. They have a huge countdown clock counting the time down and a huge speaker system that is hooked in to their communications. You get to listen to the crew talk with mission control. When they say " Houston-we are going to ease the brakes on little and slow it down from mach 28 to mach 15" that gets your attention. When they also say they are still about 18000 miles from home and they will be here in 28 minutes-that gets your attention also. From the time you hear the "double boom" when they sub-sonic to the time they are stopped on the landing strip in front of you is less than 45 seconds.....

I have also been lucky enough to get to fly the simulator a couple of times late at night. The first time I got to fly it, I crashed and burned 6 times before I landed the Schuttle successfully--and that landing was not pretty.

It really is an amazing machine.