Saturday, February 16, 2008

Space Shuttle

The space shuttle Atlantis is currently docked with the International space station, and it orbited across our horizon for 4 minutes this evening!! It looked like a very bright star moving at a high rate of speed. Very cool. We waved and said hello to all the astronauts, and marveled at the universe God has created!
(the bright light in this picture is not the space shuttle, it's a streetlight!)

8 comments:

David H. said...

One of the astronauts on the Atlantis is in our Sunday School class in Houston. His name is Rex Walheim, and he is a mission specialist on this flight. He has been up before, but was a while back. He is one of the astronauts who is doing a space walk. Every Sunday we would see many different men at church who had been on the "orbiter" as they properly call it. They are really just ordinary men who have extraordinary jobs. All the ones we have met are very humble men. Many of them teach Sunday School classes, work with children, etc. When they would get back from a mission, they would give a presentation for the chuch, and share their private photos and stories of the mission. It is wonderful to see them honor God and His creation. Many of them have an opportunity to share the Gospel with others in space--neat!

Susan

David H. said...

We have a friend from our Sunday School class in our church in Houston, Rex Walheim, who is a mission specialist on this flight. He actually lives in our old neighborhood. Our church had many astronauts in it, and every Sunday you could see one. They really are just normal people who have an extraordinary job. The church would also connect to NASA TV, which is part of our cable here, and broadcast every shuttle's take off, and have prayer for the mission. According to David, the proper name for the "shuttle" is the orbiter. When they are disscussing it at work they use "orbiter" and not shuttle. Just a little trivia for the family.

Susan

David H. said...

I am very sorry for the double entry. I thought my first one was lost in cyber space--I guess not.

Susan

votemom said...

cool!

(next time let the rest of us know so we can watch too!!!)

Pam said...

Susan,

I don't mind your double post. Twice as much of you is a good thing!! That is so neat to hear your perspective on the astronauts, since you have met several personally. Very, very cool that so many are believers. I don't know how you could see what they see and NOT be.

Votemom,

If I'd known more than 5 minutes ahead of time that this visible orbit was occurring, I would have mentioned it here! My hubby never told me, he just set his phone alarm to go off a few minutes before hand, and when it started beeping he told us all to grab our coats and meet him outside! I'll aim for some advanced planning next time. :-) We are going to the nasa website to find out when re-entry and touchdown will occur and we'll watch it live there (since it probably won't be televised).

Anonymous said...

LOL I'm sooooooooooooooooo disappointed!!!!! LOL I thought you actually caught the space shuttle! LOL Too cool though! ;)
Blessings,
Laurie

Pam said...

Laurie,

I actually did get one picture of the shuttle (or orbiter!) and almost posted it here, but no-one else but us would know which bright light is the shuttle - there are stars in the picture too so you can't really distinguish anything. And it's poor quality because the camera had virtually nothing to focus on. Be sure to check nasa's site on Wed for the landing!

Anonymous said...

That is so cool!! What a great memory for all of you!