Atlantis lift-off video

I still get goosebumps watching a space shuttle lift-off. Here's video of Atlantis lifting off yesterday.

And video of SRB separation. I don't have anything to add to it other than, "Cool!" And goosebumps. It never gets old watching this stuff. I don't take technology like this for granted. I still look at one of these launches and say to myself in amazement, "There's people inside of that shuttle." And brave people at that. Our astronauts are under no illusions - they know that something could go tragically wrong, and if it does, it probably means death.

I've still read bits and pieces on the Web about possible damage to the orbiter, but there's nothing definitive. In today's New York Times:

Although some debris was spotted about the time the solid rocket boosters were jettisoned, Mr. Hale [the shuttle program manager] said that this had occurred after the point when foam debris is a threat to the craft. He joked that he turned to John Chapman, the external tank project manager, and said, "Give me more speckled tanks [referring to the tank's speckled appearance after repairs were made following a hail storm that gave considerable dents to the ET]."

(For a picture of the ET's specks, page down - I posted one yesterday.)

Yesterday, during a press conference following Atlantis' launch, some good news about America's next generation space vehicle.

From DailyTech:

The current generation of NASA Space Transportation System (STS) shuttles have approximately 15-16 planned launches before retirement in 2010 with a next-generation U.S. space transport, dubbed Project Constellation, still early development. While NASA originally planned to replace the STS by 2015, it appears that NASA researchers want the next shuttle to be ready before that.

"There is a two-thirds statistical likelihood of being successful in meeting that [2015] date, but our plan is much more aggressive than that," said NASA Constellation program manager Jeff Hanley in a press conference shortly after Space Shuttle Atlantis returned to space for the first time since September 2006.

[Snip]

"We're trying to get the [initial operating capabilities] by as early as 2013," Hanley adds. Project Constellation will reuse much of the existing STS infrastructure, but still requires new command and launch modules.

As long as CMB is on the Web, and I have no plans to stop publishing, I'll be tracking the progress of Project Constellation.