●Shuttle Discovery flew its first mission on August 30, 1984, and landed after its last mission on March 9, 2011.

●It flew 39 missions and spent a total of one year (365 days) in space.

●Discovery took the Hubble Space Telescope, which is about the size of a school bus, into space.

●It got its name from four British exploring ships, all named Discovery.

●Discovery was the shuttle that was launched after the tragic disasters involving the shuttle Challenger in 1986 and the Columbia in 2003. It earned the nickname the “Return to Flight” orbiter.

●Discovery carried former astronaut John Glenn, who was the first American to orbit Earth in 1962, back into space in 1998. At the time, Glenn was 77 years old, making him the oldest person in space.

●Discovery carried a Buzz Lightyear toy into space in 2008. Buzz spent 468 days on the international space station before returning to Earth aboard Discovery in 2009. (Last month, Buzz found a new home at the Air and Space Museum on the Mall as part of the popular-culture collection.)

●The only president to attend a shuttle launch was Bill Clinton. He watched Discovery blast into space in October 1998.

Quote by Mondobubba:
Bobber one of the things I noticed in your pictures of the Discovery is how used it looks. The weathering streaks on the whilte paint, the smuges on the reentry heat shield on the bottom.

Quote by wickedpam:

Quote by Raine:

Quote by wickedpam:
Oh and btw, I feel we much always have a "ship" called The Enterprise

Thursday the 2 ships will sit nose to nose at the Museum --

and then Enterprise heads to the Intrepid in NYC.

I thought the Enterprise was already in NY? Dang if I'd known I would have gone out to Advar sooner!

The soldier who provided The Times with a series of 18 photos of soldiers posing with corpses did so on condition of anonymity. He served in Afghanistan with the 82nd Airborne's 4th Brigade Combat Team from Ft. Bragg, N.C. He said the photos point to a breakdown in leadership and discipline that he believed compromised the safety of the troops.

He expressed the hope that publication would help ensure that alleged security shortcomings at two U.S. bases in Afghanistan in 2010 were not repeated. The brigade, under new command but with some of the same paratroopers who served in 2010, began another tour in Afghanistan in February.

U.S. military officials asked The Times not to publish any of the pictures.

Quote by Raine:
This crap HAS to end. ***warning*** this is graphic

The soldier who provided The Times with a series of 18 photos of soldiers posing with corpses did so on condition of anonymity. He served in Afghanistan with the 82nd Airborne's 4th Brigade Combat Team from Ft. Bragg, N.C. He said the photos point to a breakdown in leadership and discipline that he believed compromised the safety of the troops.

He expressed the hope that publication would help ensure that alleged security shortcomings at two U.S. bases in Afghanistan in 2010 were not repeated. The brigade, under new command but with some of the same paratroopers who served in 2010, began another tour in Afghanistan in February.

U.S. military officials asked The Times not to publish any of the pictures.

Quote by Scoopster:
As if there wasn't enough reason for folks in Massachusetts to despise Scott Brown..

Dick Clark, Entertainment Icon Nicknamed 'America's Oldest Teenager,' Dies at 82


By JULIA KATHAN and SHEILA MARIKAR (@SheilaYM)
April 18, 2012

Dick Clark, the music industry maverick, longtime TV host and powerhouse producer who changed the way we listened to pop music with "American Bandstand," and whose trademark "Rockin' Eve" became a fixture of New Year's celebrations, died today at the age of 82.

Clark's agent Paul Shefrin said in statement that the veteran host died this morning following a "massive heart attack."

Born in Mount Vernon, N.Y., on Nov. 30, 1929, Richard Wagstaff Clark began his lifelong career in show business began before he was even out of high school. He started working in the mailroom of WRUN, a radio station in upstate New York run by his father and uncle. It wasn't long before the teenager was on the air, filling in for the weatherman and the announcer.

Clark pursued his passion at Syracuse University, working as a disc jockey at the student-run radio station while studying for his degree in business. After graduating in 1951, Clark went back to his family's radio station, but within a year, a bigger city and bigger shows were calling.