Shuttle Flyover at JSC

Who says we don't get to see cool things down in Houston? The last Shuttle mission had to land in California because of weather in Florida, and when that happens, NASA has to transport the Shuttle cross country back to the vehicle processing facility...on the back of a 747.

The flight path usually does not take the Shuttle directly over JSC, but I guess this time the agency decided to be nice and give (some of us) one last close up view of that beautiful machine before they retire her. The 747 came in around Ellington Field (a few miles to the north of JSC), circled around the east side of Clear Lake, and then did 3 laps of JSC, flying very low right up NASA Rd 1. The pictures taken here were all from coworkers of mine from their own personal cameras. The entire center workforce basically stopped for half an hour that day and everyone (!) was outside looking up and cheering as the Shuttle flew over. It was really something.

The 747/Shuttle hybrid flying machine then practiced touch and goes at Ellington. There are some pretty spectacular pictures taken from the T-38 escort jet of this. As you can imagine, flying a 747 must be pretty hard with just people inside, but with a FREAKING SPACE SHUTTLE on your back must be damn near impossible. So any extra training they get in the better.

This flyover took place in December and I am just getting to posting this now, I know, but I have been so busy with work and such I have not been very vigilant about providing updates to the blog. Hopefully that will change (the frequency of updates part, if anything I will just be more busy at work). Anyways, here are the pictures.

Shuttle/747 Flyover

I love my job.