Endeavor is Home for the Holidays!
After traveling more than six and a half million miles in sixteen days, the space shuttle Endeavor landed safely at Edwards Air Force Base in California, on Sunday the 30th of November. Originally scheduled to land at Kennedy Space Center, the weather didn't cooperate so NASA had to change the original re-entry and landing plans. Endeavor will be ferried home on a Boeing 747, probably later this week. You can find mission pictures here.
I always breathe a sigh of relief when a shuttle takes off or touches down safely. Since the Challenger exploded just after launch in 1986, and the Columbia re-entry disaster in 2003, there's been that awareness of tension about the danger our explorers face, and that poignant sense of waiting and hoping for their safe return. It's always been part of the experience of those who stay behind, I suppose.