One More Mission Finished

Another space shuttle mission is over, with Discovery on the ground again. The work on the space station, which I was tracking for the first time with an RSS feed (although I watched the final minutes of the landing on TV), seemed overshadowed in the mission's final hours by news of something floating away from the rudder, but again this wound up seeming kind of like a great fuss over a small thing; not that a large thing shouldn't be dismissed until it's too late because too many small things have been accepted.

As I've seen pointed out during this mission, there are only ten more space shuttle flights scheduled; I gather that two of them might be taken off the schedule too, although I do seem to hear vague rumours every so often that the schedule just might be added to yet. The next mission won't be until October, to do something different and go to the space telescope one last time. It seems to have been delayed because more external fuel tanks still have to be built, but as well repairs of some extensiveness to the four decade-old launch pad are now required.