Sonic Booms

Last night I went outside to try to watch Space Shuttle Endeavour return home to Florida after its visit to the International Space Station.  There are a lot of things that I love about living in Apopka, but one the most unique is living right under the Space Shuttle's return flight pattern.  As the vehicle shoots through the sky above, a double sonic boom can be heard.  If it comes home during the school day, the booms will rattle the windows and usually two or three students will say, "hey, the Space Shuttle's home!"  Yesterday the shuttle commander was bringing Endeavdour home after dark, which is fairly unusual in itself.  I was looking at a high-flying plane, thinking it might be the shuttle, when I heard the two booms behind me to the south.  I knew I had lost the possibility of seeing the spacecraft coming in.  When I got back inside, my wife was watching the shuttle coming to a stop on the runway.

Today about half of my students said that they heard the booms.  We've all heard the shuttle coming in at one time or another, and we've all seen the giant plume as the shuttle leaves the grasp of gravity and finds its place in orbit.  Those occurrences are so common in Central Florida, yet they never get old.  With every launch, people can be seen pulling over and getting out of cars, or explaining to their children the column of steam, or just silently gathering to get a good view.   It's nice that for a few brief moments every so often, people in our area just stop and be still and marvel at this amazing human accomplishment.  It's some thing that we can all be proud of.

This particular shuttle flight (STS-123) is of interest to me because it is one that I will be including in my follow on plan next year.  Aboard the shuttle was Japanese astronaut Takao Doi, who, in 1997, become the first Japanese astronaut to have ever completed a spacewalk.  The primary mission of this flight was to transport the first piece of the Kibo experiment module to be connected to the space station.  Two other pieces of this laboratory will be sent and attached in two subsequent journeys.  As I present the International Space Station to my students next year, I'm going to spend some time talking about the international partnership and understanding that had to be established in order to make this project a reality.  The fact that Japanese astronauts and equipment can be shipped aboard an American space transport to be attached to a multinational space station is amazing, and I want to make sure that the importance of this accomplishment is not lost on my students. 

Click here to watch Takao Doi give a tour

 of the first part of the Kibo module

Another interesting fact that I learned this week is that the Endeavour was made from the spare and leftover parts of shuttles Atlantis and Discovery.  Good to know they're building shuttles using the same method that I use to fix my roof after hurricanes roll through!

Tonight, no spacecraft in the sky so it's back to Japanese film.  Now Showing: All About Our House.