July 27, 2005
I am still in Florida. In fact, I will be here the rest of the week working at KSC these three days, Wednesday through Friday. I have had the pleasure of working here part-time for a little more than three years now.
As you may have seen on TV, NASA is evaluating two debris events that were picked up on video shortly after Discovery launched on Tuesday. Today the crew used both cameras and a new special boom to inspect the orbiter’s heat shield. A year ago, I accompanied Vegas when he came to Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala., to view vibration testing of this new boom that was actually employed for the first time on orbit today. There will be a briefing on the imagery analysis in about 20 minutes.
By the way, a few people have asked me about the nickname “Vegas.” It’s Jim’s Air Force pilot call sign that was given to him by other Air Force pilots. No military pilot chooses his/her call sign. Other pilots assign it, sometimes for something good, sometimes for something bad. I don’t know all the details, but I understand that “Vegas” had a very successful run playing poker at some early stage of his Air Force career.
More tomorrow…
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EDITOR’S NOTE: Dr. Michael Freeman is an Associate Professor of aerospace engineering and mechanics at The University of Alabama. He is attending this week’s launch of the space shuttle Discovery, and will publish daily accounts of the events surrounding the shuttle’s “return to flight” launch. UA graduate James Kelly is the pilot of STS-114, NASA’s first space flight in over two years. Dr. Freeman may be reached by e-mail at michael.freeman@ua.edu.