The space shuttle Discovery had a perfect launch today. It’s only the second flight in the more than 3 years since the loss of Columbia on reentry. This time a lot of care will be taken to make sure that the shuttle’s thermal protection system is up to its job. And if it has been damaged, the crew can stay at the International Space Station until a couple of the low-tech but reliable Russian Soyuz rockets can be launched to get them.
The shuttle has been rightly criticized as an enormous boondoggle, a gigantic white elephant that leaches valuable human and financial capital going around and around that should be better spent developing actual exploration vehicles. But the launch is still a glorious sight.
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