Chasing The Station

Wow, we just got back from a 4 day weekend, and boy did we need it.

We didn't just celebrate America's Independence all weekend mind you, we worked on the Pleaseeasaur Animation for most of it. The first piece of the animation is almost complete, now just 9 more to go :)

I've been reading the book Dragonfly: NASA and the crisis aboard MIR, kindly donated to me by Perk. It's pretty awesome, and follows the series of accidents and equipment failures that plagued MIR as it's era was waning, and the International Space Station was being planned. It's like 4 dudes were locked up in a billion dollar trashcan doing science experiments while the whole thing fell apart around them. MIR commanders used to spend most of their time aboard MIR fixing MIR. That was actually in their mission description! "Fix MIR"

I mention this because yesterday was not only Independence Day here in America, but it also marked the launch of Space Shuttle Discovery. Discovery's mission is to meet up with the International Space Station, to deliver supplies and, get this, make repairs to the International Space Station.

You can track Discovery's location and it's relation to the International Space Station. It's chasing the Station because Discovery's launch was delayed, and as a result the Station just flew by in orbit overhead.