Shuttle go to go!!!

[Rob]

Fingers crossed for her this time.

[Ant]

got the NASA countdown running on my other PC - currently 39.51 minutes to go!

Lets keep our fingers crossed.

Ant

[OXO]

Good Luck Shuttle Let get back to seeing whats out there!

James

[Astroman]

I watched the shuttle launch on NASA TV. Fantastic sight! Everything looks good, so all the best to the crew! 8)

[daz]

fingers, toes, everything crossed.

Safe journey, Discovery

[OXO]

If you missed the launch then you can go here and watch it well worth it too some fanastic camera angles...

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/4716463.stm

James

[AndyMac]

Glad it's been a successful launch - though there has been a report of fallen debris. According to the news, the seriousness of this incident (or otherwise) has yet to be established. :?

[OXO]

Is this ice debris that have fallen off the external tank i wonder?

[Rob]

To be honest it looked like a black tile (hope not)... only time will tell now.

[Astroman]

There's a lot of stuff that's designed to fall off in flight-vent covers, rocket covers and such. I heard there may have been a portion of a tile that fell off, but it matters little at this point. Much of this mission is dedicated to testing just this type of thing-inspection and repair of the shuttle while in flight. New cameras and procedures are in place for exactly this, so if there's a real need for a repair, they're already ready, already. 8)

[russ]

It's great to see the old 'bird' back in the air/space. Fingers crossed that's not a major problem and the rest of the mission is smooth.

Can't believe it's been 2 1/2 years since the last flight.

Russ

[Rob]

Yeah Russ, its been a while... good to see things back on track though