Actually 7 new windows, courtesy of STS-130, the 130th Shuttle mission ending (hopefully) today. If you’ve been keeping track over the last 13 days, you know our brave astronauts have finished installing an observation module on the International Space Station with 7 new windows, called the Cuppola. The view should be amazing and useful. Why even have a Space Station if you can’t look out the window?
Of all the things we do as US citizens, this is one of the coolest. We fly people into space, and look at stuff. The Space Shuttle program is winding down. This is one of the few remaining flights. It’s been an epic period in human history, of which we as citizens can all be proud.
We wish the citizen astronauts of STS-130 well on their safe return to the planet. In terms of media attention, we sometimes focus on the idiotic and trivial, while wonderous and heroic things happening all around us seemingly go unnoticed. Not unnoticed here. It’s Really Redding.
