He also got a peek at the NASA engine shop, shuttle landing facility and control tower, vehicle assembly building, and mobile launch platforms, as well as several other difficult-to-remember locales.
The official said that while the president was receiving his usual intelligence briefing, Card was watching NASA Television, awaiting the shuttle landing, when he saw that NASA had lost contact with Columbia.
Unsettled weather at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida prompted NASA to call off today's planned landing, and the shuttle's orbit will not allow another landing attempt in Florida until tomorrow morning.
The astronauts aboard the Space Shuttle Discovery today used a computer simulator to practice landing in preparation for their planned return to Earth tomorrow.
After landing in Narita, I took a shuttle bus straight to Shibuya where I knew I'd find the epicenter of all that defined what I thought I would find.
Hernandez will serve as Discovery's flight engineer for launch and landing, and will wield robotic arms on the shuttle and space station.
After 25 years, 32 successful missions, and more than 120-million miles traveled, space shuttle Atlantis made what's likely to be its last landing yesterday at Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
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His wife had watched the launch of his mission but missed the landing, so it was great for her to see the shuttle in the air, he added.
The remains of the shuttle's crew were found near Hemphill, along with the nose, part of the landing gear and much of the cabin.
"Together, we proved that a human in freefall can break the speed of sound returning from near space, going through a transonic phase and landing safely on the ground, " said Dr Jonathan Clark, a former space shuttle flight surgeon and the Red Bull Stratos medical director.
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The 22, 000 heat protection tiles shield the shuttle from the 3, 000-degree Fahrenheit temperatures encountered during reentry into Earth's atmosphere for landing.
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