See That Little White Dot?

As soon as we heard on the news yesterday morning that the space shuttle Atlantis would be landing at Edwards Air Force Base, Floyd & I jumped in the car and drove about 60 miles to an area where we could witness the landing. This is the first shuttle landing I've ever seen, and it was exciting especially for a Memorial Day Weekend activity.

Floyd is an old hand at witnessing shuttle landings dating as far back as the early 1980s when the shuttle program was still new. He worked at NASA in the early 70s at what is now Dryden Flight Research Facility, so he asked a former co-worker for pit passes to the second ever shuttle landing. He shot some great photos of the returning astronauts that day because he was so close to the center of activity.

The first shot I took with my camera (at maximum zoom) when we first spotted the shuttle following it's explosive sonic boom after shattering the sound barrier.

Below is the picture above and some others I took then cropped and optimized for web viewing.

Now, it looks like the shuttle!

Gliding past us toward the runway.

Angling down for the landing.

Traveling at more than 200 miles per hour, it's almost down.

Just me with the shuttle landing site in the distant background.

Happy Memorial Day!