Daddy's Little Girl

About an hour ago the Space Shuttle Discovery was hurtling across the Pacific at break neck speed heading for the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. I spent my lunch time tracking the flight as it raced on across the US and descended towards the runway on the NASA Channel. You couldn't see anything when they switched to the shot of the sky but slowly the shuttle came into view.

Shortly after it came into view Commander Pam Melroy took control of the shuttle to maneuver it for landing. At this point in the flight the shuttle is basically a very heavy glider so she had only one shot to get it right. I watched as she maneuvered the massive shuttle around the "heading alignment circle" to line up the shuttle on runway 33. They say the shuttle lands ten times as fast and has a descent angle seven times as steep as a commercial airliner. (Maybe those numbers are reversed. I'm not sure.) Commander Melroy performed flawlessly and nailed the landing with the main gear touching down at 1:01:18.

I joked with Kim that they were probably supposed to touch down at 1:00 P.M. so she was actually a little over a minute late. Kim didn't think that was too bad for a flight that lasted 15 days. I also noticed they have to wait a long time to deplane, just like the airlines.

The whole time I was watching this I was wondering what Commander Melroy's dad must be thinking. I imagine he must be nervous and proud. I know it might be sexist but as a father of three sons and one daughter I worry a little more about my daughter. I'm a little more protective of her and I wondered what it would be like if she was ever commanding something like a space shuttle.

I wonder if there comes a point when you quit worrying because they've proven they can handle themselves just fine on their own. This was Commander Melroy's third time piloting a shuttle and I suppose one would think that if you can do that you can probably handle just about anything. But I just can't help but think that there is a dad somewhere that still thinks of Commander Melroy as daddy's little girl.