It is the end of an era.
If you’re hoping to catch the final launch of shuttle Discovery, it looks as if ignition will take place as scheduled at approximately 4:50 p.m. EST. The initial launch was scheduled for November 1, 2010, yet was repeated delayed due to issues with the external tank.
This final space flight of shuttle Discovery will bring an end to the chapter of the most traveled space vehicle in NASA’s textured history. It has been in operation for over 30 years, and this flight represents the beginning of the end to the NASA Space Shuttle program.
The final Discovery mission is Space Station related. The astronauts will perform two spacewalks while adding another module to the space station for storage and experimentation. Discovery will also deliver the first humanoid robot to space.
This robot will work from the space station and report back to earth via Twitter. I would totally make this stuff up, but you can follow this robot @ AstroRobonaut, adding legitimacy to my claim. This particular robot is of aluminum construction, weighs 330 pounds, stands at 3′ 4″ tall and has been nick-named R2. (Robonaut 2) Yeah, I would totally make that stuff up, too, but I’m not.
I now imagine George Lucas rolling in a pile of crisp, overproduced US Dollars from the Federal Reserve, wearing a poo-eating grin and giggling like Jar-Jar Binks.
After completing its mission, Discovery will have flown a collected 143,000,000 miles. After being cleaned up, it will be placed in a museum to enjoy its retirement of sweet admiration.
If you’d like to check out the launch, you can catch it at NASA TV.
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