I was there! Pics from Space Shuttle Discovery's arrival at the Smithsonian [View all]

[EarlG]

On Tuesday I was lucky enough to get to see Space Shuttle Discovery's fly-by of Washington DC. I shared some pictures of that event in the Lounge, so I thought I'd give General Discussion a turn.

On Thursday morning my family visited the Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center, which is the extension of the Air and Space Museum out near Dulles Airport in Virgina, to see the arrival of Space Shuttle Discovery. My wife took all of these great pics, although to be fair there are a few at the end where she was sitting on my shoulders so I think I deserve some points.



Here's Enterprise (the prototype Shuttle which was used to test descent and landing but never actually flew in space) waiting outside the Center. Enterprise has been at Udvar-Hazy for many years but will be heading for New York now that Discovery has arrived.



Senator John Glenn -- the first American to orbit the Earth, and the oldest man to fly in space (on Discovery in 1998) -- arrives for the ceremony.



The band arrives.



Here comes Discovery...



That's enough patriotic music for now, chaps.



Here's something you don't see every day.











Eventually they backed Enterprise up and brought Discovery into its new home.



They weren't quite aligned right the first time so they had to back up and try again.



A glimpse at the underside of Discovery's wing through a side door of the hangar.



I just liked this picture.



Discovery from inside the hangar.





There you have it. If you're ever in the DC area I highly recommend a visit to Udvar-Hazy by the way. IMO it blows away the Air and Space Museum on the National Mall. Plus now you get to see Discovery!