Space Shuttle Flies Over New York City
By Phantom On April 27th, 2012
About 1030 this morning, the Space Shuttle Enterprise, as carried by a 747 flew over New York Harbor and up the Hudson, then back down, over the Verrazanno Bridge, to its landing at JFK Airport.
It caused disruption in local offices. I left a conference call mid-sentence when it became visible.
The Enterprise will stay at JFK for about a month. In June, travels up the Hudson River by barge, and will spend the rest of its days as and honored member of the USS Intrepid Museum.
We’re proud to have this magnificent spacecraft in our city.
I got a great look at it as it flew north along the Hudson (we have west facing offices) but unfortunately work got in the way and I missed the return journey south.
We’re further away than you I think ( Fulton St ) but I’m happy that we got to see it, even if from ” afar “
Awesome! Wish I’d been there to see it.
I was going to say: a once-in-lifetime experience. But, who knows, spacecraft over our cities may well be a familiar sight in coming decades.
Let’s just hope they’re “our” craft
Remarkable image.
One evening some few years ago, a friend and myself shared a small plane. This particular day we had been to Lakeland in Florida for a game of golf and we were flying back south around dusk.
As we were crossing the West to East approach to Canaveral, just south of Orlando and perhaps 100 miles to the west, and at some 1,500ft, we heard on the radio that the shuttle was on the approach to the Cape to land and that it would cross our path, but at a much higher level, – some 15,000ft I beleive. We were advised to maintain our current height and maintain our course south.
When entering the atmosphere the shuttle has no engine power, literally gliding from space to land. When it passed overhead, despite not having any engine power, we just couldn’t believe the noise it made.
Of course we couldn’t see it, as by that time it was dark, and the shuttle didn’t have any lights on. Nevertheless, while not a life changing experience, it was still quite memorable.
While on the topic, one of the regular sights during the ‘space era’ was the sight of the many take-offs, which could be seen quite clearly even from the West coast of Florida. The late evening and night launches were often quite spectacular.
We had quite a few guests, from abroad, who planned their visits around take-off times…
What a magnificent piece of space equipment!
The space shuttle deserves a good home in retirement, joining the Appollo Space programme vehicles as a constant reminder of what a “Can Do!” attitude can achieve.
Park it up, close the gates, goodbye to communist space travel.
Now, the real spage age begins …
nice photo…I heard it was very close to us and fairly even with the windows as it went by but alas…I was totally engrossed in a project and forgot to look…bah…work!
damn disgrace
I don’t care, not even a little bit.