Booster cone with
External Tank at Pad 39B

Solid Rocket Boosters
and External Tank
from MLP [Mobile
Launch Platform] base

Solid Rocket Boosters
and External Tank
looking up from Pad

by Stefan Rosner
April 30, l998

Greetings from Cape Canaveral, all!

Please indulge me as I borrow your bandwidth (OK, I guess I'm really stealing it) to transmit these thoughts and images your way! We just got the official word that we are targeting two landing attempts on Sunday, May 3 at KSC, weather permitting (and it seems that the weather here will be better than at our secondary contingency space shuttle landing site at Dryden / Edwards Air Force Base in the Mojave Desert).

What this means, in plain English (sorry, no acronyms), is that the end is near and that I'll be heading back to California to "get a life" again! Consider yourselves warned! I hope that I haven't lost my California residency!

As STS-90 / Neurolab is drawing to a close, we are hearing that there is a good likelihood that NASA intends to "refly" the payload on another shuttle flight this calendar and fiscal year as a mission of opportunity based on an opening in the shuttle payloads manifest. We are now scoping this effort for a reflight in September, and are expecting an official announcement from the NASA Administrator soon after the landing of Neurolab.

In any case, I fully intend to take some time off this summer to regroup, become reacquainted with my friends, pay my taxes, and plan / execute a nice extended bicycle touring vacation with Julaine!

Attached to this message are some digital images which I have taken over the past weeks, including some prelaunch shots of the Columbia integrated vehicle on the Pad and the STS-90 launch. Perhaps these images will convey some of the excitement which accompanies and usually offsets the drudgery of the 60 - 100 hour weeks which I've been enduring for over two years!

I'm looking forward to getting to know each of you again in the near future!