There’s nothing better than a spot of spacepr0n (well more accurately, shuttlepr0n) on a Wednesday morning.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KZrFC988Thc[/youtube]

And so, let me present an absolutely fantastic video showing the 2010launch of STS-131, the 33rd mission to the International Space Station (ISS).  It delivered science racks to be used in the labs onboard the Station.

The space shuttle featured so beautifully here is, of course, Discovery.  Discovery flew 39 successful missions over 27 years of service, and was retired on March 9th 2011, to the sound of a great deal of sniffing sadly worldwide.

Quite an ode to a remarkable piece of engineering, and the people, structures and philosophy behind it.

—————-

For those who like music with their pictures, I might suggest a song such as ‘Solace‘ - although anything of similar vein works well :)  And, of course, blow the video up as big as possible.

My favourite bit is when the shuttle flips vertically, and then _keeps going up_.