{"id":1964,"date":"2010-05-26T10:02:10","date_gmt":"2010-05-26T10:02:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.jasonbennion.com\/?p=1964"},"modified":"2010-05-26T10:02:10","modified_gmt":"2010-05-26T10:02:10","slug":"welcome_home_atlantis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.jasonbennion.com\/index.php\/2010\/05\/26\/welcome_home_atlantis\/","title":{"rendered":"Welcome Home, Atlantis"},"content":{"rendered":"

I’m sure everyone has heard by now that space shuttle Atlantis<\/i> returned safely to Earth this morning, concluding her 32nd — and final — mission. The old girl isn’t quite ready for mothballs yet; she will be prepped again as per the usual turnaround routine to serve as the “launch-on-need” vehicle — that’d be a “back-up” to you and me — for Endeavour<\/i>‘s final flight in November, which will be the last of the shuttle program. Barring any problems with Endeavour<\/i>, however, Atlantis<\/i> is effectively finished. I won’t reiterate again how sad this makes me. Instead, let’s just paste a couple of souvenirs into our online scrapbook, and enjoy the memories while they’re still fresh.<\/p>\n

First up, Twittering astronaut Soichi Noguchi captured a really gorgeous portrait of Atlantis<\/i> as she pulled away from the International Space Station a couple days ago; click on the thumbnail below to see the full-size version:<\/p>\n

\"Homebound!<\/a><\/p>\n

And here is NASA’s official video coverage of the landing. This is what the future looked like when I was a kid, and even though I know a lot of people now see this as the past — the 1970s, to be precise — I never get tired of seeing it. For a vehicle that was once derisively referred to as “the flying brick,” the shuttle always strikes me as incredibly graceful in the air and surprisingly delicate when it touches down.
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