The bright sun dissects the airglow above Earth's horizon in this view photographed with a digital still camera from the Space Shuttle Columbia during the STS-107 mission.
Space Shuttle Columbia and the STS-107 crew perished during re-entry on Feb. 1, 2003.
This image was d/l from the NASA website.
The morning the Columbia disintegrated over the Central Texas skies I was working the night shift and was supposed to have been off by that time. In fact, I had told a co-worker that we should watch the sky and we'd be able to watch the shuttle coming in on its approach to the landing spot in Florida.
He was skeptical, but I assured him I had watched the shuttle land before; once was at night, an awesome sight. I had to use binoculars, but I could make out the shape and the red glow in the sky, the trail left by re-entering the atmosphere, helped focus on the spacecraft.
That night we had to work overtime and after the couple extra hours of work added onto the other work-filled eight hours, I had forgotten about the landing. We were getting into our cars that cold Feb. morning when I noticed some odd looking vapor trails in the southern sky. It was nothing new to see them, what with the winds and the jet stream dipping down south during this time of the year.
Little did I know it was the result of the disaster.
Rick Husband, commander of that flight, was from Amarillo. The city airport is now named after him.
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