Friday, September 21, 2012

It's a Bird, It's a Plane...

...it's a big old plane with the space shuttle on it!

At 11:15 yesterday morning, the space shuttle flew over Tucson. It was a sweet gesture from astronaut Mark Kelly to his wife, Gabby Giffords, and the rest of Tucson got to enjoy.

As soon as I got to work, I put a reminder in my calendar to head outside at 11:10 to watch it fly over head. I've never seen the space shuttle before and with the shuttle program ending, who knew if I'd ever get to see one?

Once the reminder went off later that morning, I hustled outside to find a bunch of people already gathering. No one knew where it would appear exactly, but we had the general knowledge that it was going East to West.

Less than a minute after walking outside, someone had spotted it. It was flying very low, about 1500 feet and over the main part of town. But because it was flying so low and the main part of town is probably six miles from my work, the shuttle was hidden by the office buildings.

We all dashed deep into the parking lot, hoping to get far enough from the buildings and the trees to see it. About a minute later, it reappeared.

Here's what I expected to see:

Image Source
Here's what I actually saw:


If I extended my arm to full length, it was smaller than my thumb nail.

But I don't care! I still saw it! I saw the space shuttle!

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