We went up to Canada for some vacation time this past week and so I didn’t have much chance to keep up with the news about the space shuttle landing. We did find out that it was delayed, and I woke up this morning to hear that it landed safely. So, that’s a big “whew!” even if we don’t have any shuttles going up for the foreseeable future. At least this crew proved that the shuttle could still fly; now if we could just get the fuel tank folks to fix it so that debris doesn’t smash into the shuttles during launch, that would be great!

Of course I’m interested because I want to see Hubble Space telescope refurbished and kept on orbit a few more years. Every time I see images from HST like the one below, I just hope that we can hold it together for a couple more years until the shuttle can get back up there and deliver a crew to bring HST back into full functionality.

Hubble Spies a Zoo of Galaxies
Hubble Spies a Zoo of Galaxies

HST gives us a peek at the distant, early past of the universe. The more it looks farther into space, the further back in our history it lets us see, and to my way of thinking, that’s pretty cool stuff!