The STS 122 creww woke up about 30 minutes ago and are preparing to rendezvous with the International Space Station. They are carrying the European Space Agency’s Columbus Control Center. You can watch the link-up live on NASA-TV.
I was a little late catching up with this launch because I have been busy being lazy, after all–I am on leave. One thing that is interesting being in a different country from the U.S. is that outer space still happens. They run 24 hours operations in some way, so anywhere in the world you can keep track of the space missions as they occur. This is pretty cool.
The Columbus laboratory is an interesting mission. The ESA writes:
As the first European laboratory devoted to long-term research in space, Columbus will further expand the science capabilities of the ISS. In its interior, the Columbus laboratory will provide accommodation for experiments in the field of multidisciplinary research into biology, physiology, material science, fluid physics, technology, life science and education. In addition, its external payload facility hosts experiments and applications in the field of space science, Earth observation and technology.
I am amazed at the cooperation that takes place with Space Research. How can we cooperate so well with the research, but not with the issues that matter the most to us. Of course, I understand that Space Research is an area that our governments can agree on–but can’t we agree on anything else?