STS-127

What a way to spend a night!

Actually it was a bit anti-climatic, watching the launch countdown for NASA's STS-127 mission, which once again was scrubbed due to a hydrogen fuel leak, at the same spot as was leaking during the last launch attempt.

I actually have not watched a launch since the Challenger exploded when I was a kid. I still remember sitting in the classroom at Daystar Seventh Day Adventist school with my classmates, mildly stunned at the explosion on the screen, and the bits of debris scattering in midair where the shuttle ought to have been. I was not traumatized, being too young and isolated from that part of the real world to be really concerned with what happened. But I have remembered that footage ever since, and as an adult I have, perhaps, a greater respect for the astronauts who walk eagerly into their shuttles, strapped to huge rockets whose controlled explosions will launch the shuttle into space. And the lighting for the STS 127 launch, had it gone up on schedule this morning, would have made for beautiful launch images.

So, the launch is again postponed, and we will all have to wait a few more days to watch this mission launch.