A Long-Awaited Liftoff

Despite having to go in to night shift tonight, I got up just a bit earlier than I normally would have to watch the launch attempt of space shuttle Discovery. After months of delays starting with a leaking fuel tank connector and going on to cracks in the insulating foam and cracks in the metal beneath it, hearing there was a technical problem with range safety did make me wonder if I'd turned myself out early for nothing, but things worked out in the end.

One thought I'd had was that I'd been lucky to have decided to go and see the previous launch in person; it happened on its first attempt. At the same time, I suppose the delay was long enough that it wouldn't have seemed impossible to book a second vacation and try again. Still, in wondering beforehand if something might go wrong, I did have the ominous thought "what if I went to see the last successful launch?" However, despite that some people seem worried about a flake of something coming off the fuel tank, to me that seemed to happen late enough to not be an immediate issue.