Space Forum / Shuttle / September 2006

Pizza delivery drivers form a union
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060922/ap_on_bi_ge/pizza_drivers_union_3
By MELISSA NELSON, Associated Press Writer
Fri Sep 22, 5:26 PM ET

Right now, for de-orbit, they make one big burn, putting the shuttle
into an elliptical orbit whose perigee brings the shuttle low enough to
hit "dense" atmosphere for re-entry interface.
What if they lowered the Shuttle's orbit in a more circular fashion

A very nice landing indeed.
Tommy
Denmark

Soyuz launched while Shuttle was already separated from ISS. So 3
vehicles will share the same orbital plane for a couple of days.
Will the Syouz lap the shuttle during this period of co-existance in the
same orbital plane ? if so, how close would they be ?

No one answered before so I'll try again  :-)   Call me persistent!
Why are the landing times getting later w/each day - the launch times
got earlier each day - is that always the case or did they do something
different this time around?

I just made a naked eye observation of ISS and Shuttle pass. My location is
in Southern California. ISS was steady, Atlantis "appeared" to be tumbling
with two regular flashes with a period of about a second.
What could cause this?

Why do they do this twice? Is it for redundancy or are they
inspecting for unknown collision damage during the time the
shuttle is docked at the ISS? Or maybe a different type of
inspection?

Who's going to be the first to correctly identify the landscape below
the astrounauts in
<http://spaceflight.nasa.gov/gallery/images/shuttle/sts-115/html/s115e05801.html>
???

While watching NASA TV online, I hear the crew of ISS can see Atlantis
descending towards its landin at Kennedy.
Will there any footage available to watch??
I think this will give great film!!

Shuttle gets into orbit in around 15 mins but it takes over a day to get to
the ISS.
How far away is the ISS?

Shuttle landed; air-ground comms heard on 259.7
````````````````````````````````````````````````
  The Shuttle landed on time, shortly after 6:20am EDT (1020z).
Comms were clear from the Shuttle on 259.7 during their approach and

would a spy satellite be able to get a closer view of the object?

News alert on cnn.com:
"An astronaut aboard space shuttle Atlantis tells Mission Control they
saw a second piece of debris floating near the spacecraft, NASA
officials say."

OK.. tomorrow's landing opporuntities are 6:22am and 7:57am at KSC. I
thought that with each passing day, the landing time was about, +/- 25
minutes EARLIER..not later??
The launch time got earlier with each successive day,  and I thought

Dumb question probably and I think I know the answer, but - can they browse
Google during their off-time up there in the Space Station and the even the
shuttle? Can they fire up Instant Messenger and chat from orbit with their
family, friends etc.???