STS-126 and More Fun with America's Space Program
 

Everybody probably knows by now that Space Shuttle Endeavour successfully launched on STS-126, bound for the International Space Station with a new potty and a bunch of other home improvement gear. Endeavour will rendezvous with the ISS on Sunday if all goes well.

In other news, remember Gene Kranz, the fellow whom Ed Harris played so well in the move Apollo 13?



Ed Harris as Gene Kranz

One of the more fun advantages of working down here in the swamp is that we get to hear from interesting folks quite often, and last night's dinner speaker was Gene Kranz, the original edition. He gave a very inspiring talk about how mission control grew up. You may recall that Kranz was the lead flight director on Apollo 13. Later, by the time I got to JSC, he was head of the Mission Operations Directorate and I worked for him through a layer or two of management. MOD is where all the flight directors and flight controllers hang out. I was in crew and flight controller training back then.

I really enjoyed the talk. We shouldn't be surprised at what Gene chose as his subject because (a) it's what he does and (b) he wrote a book about it!



"Failure is not an Option" by Gene Kranz

So now I have a copy of the book signed by my old boss. I also lucked out and won the drawing for the table centerpiece--a big mission control logo mounted on black foam core--so I got Gene to sign that, too. It really made my whole day!

And a successful Shuttle launch always makes my day! :D

They're still up there, Greg. When does the space shuttle land?

STS-126 is scheduled to land on next Friday, the day after Thanksgiving.

More amusement: There's a Progress resupply vehicle (flight 31P, I think) scheduled for launch from Russia on Wednesday.