So long, Earth. Catch you on the flip side...

Although I've heard some fellow Bonnaroo'ers say the above title, it isn't in regards to certain plants/fungi, it's in regards to NASA's latest blast off into outer space that occurred today, Sunday, out of Cape Canaveral, FL.  The Discovery STS-119 is equipped with a crew of 7 who are on their way to outer space to continue the additions to the 100 Billion Dollar, (Billion, with a B) International Space Station.

  Scheduled to take off more than a month ago, the Discovery successfully made it into outer space today at around 7:55 PM EDT.  The month delay on the take-off was due to a leak in the lines that feed the hydrogen from the fuel tank to the engine.  NASA fixed the problem and checked and double checked earlier this week to ensure it would not happen again.  The 7 man crew's mission is to install the final two solar arrays needed to complete the International Space Station commanded by the US, Russia, Japan, Canada, Ten European nations, Italy and Brazil.  The Space Station orbits the Earth traveling over 17,000 miles an hour at 190 nautical miles above the Earth's surface.  Believe it or not, it can be seen by the naked eye from Earth.  Believe it or not again, the International Space Station has had a human residing in it for the past 8 and a half years.  Anyways, check out this site and read up on, I watched it live on CNBC it was something pretty interesting considering the fact that this Station can be used to research outer space over long periods of time, that previously could not have been accomplished on board a Space Shuttle, which only allowed short term stints in space.  Already, the station has been able to detect dark matter in distant galaxies and the horizons are endless (pun intended).

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090316/ap_on_sc/space_shuttle