dangerous misson ...
 

... but wonderful pictures

during the repair mission Steve Robinson made a couple of picutres from very unusual angels, showing the space shuttle in front of the ISS. I don't know why, but some of the pics are just beautiful. Perhaps because they don't look like the usual pics you see from the missions

my Fav
http://www.spiegel.de/img/0,1020,501967,00.jpg

a look at Soichi Noguchi
http://www.spiegel.de/img/0,1020,501958,00.jpg

http://www.spiegel.de/img/0,1020,501965,00.jpg

http://www.spiegel.de/img/0,1020,501979,00.jpg

..........Amazing...........And thank you for posting these

I really hope they make it back down ok. It would really suck to lose another crew and shuttle. NASA has had enough set backs. If this mission goes wrong, space program will get set back another 10 years.

simply amazing pics. i would love to see more. THEY BETTER MAKE IT BACK SAFELY!

Those are very cool! #3 looks a little like a beached whale but I won't say anything.

Any more? From NASA or a fan site?

<img src="http://www.nasa.gov/images/content/124283main_image_feature_379_ys_4.jpg">
"Now if someone would just move that pesky station out of the way we'd have a nice shot..."

<img src="http://www.corntown.com/images/backflip_shuttle.jpg">
I liked this one during the backflip. Has some of that unclean feeling to it.

a german online magazine published them, they only showed four more picture but those are somewhat ordinary pics:

http://www.spiegel.de/img/0,1020,501975,00.jpg

http://www.spiegel.de/img/0,1020,501977,00.jpg

http://www.spiegel.de/img/0,1020,501963,00.jpg

http://www.spiegel.de/img/0,1020,501971,00.jpg

there is nothing "ordinary" about those pics. thanks for more pics.

does anybody know where the 4th pic in the post is overlooking? what country/ocean/continent is that? i can't figure it out.

Amazing pics.
Hopefully before I die, there will be commercial flights into space, and I can be the one taking the pictures

Wow. I got a nice feeling of vertigo by some of these pics, that huge spacestation and shuttle floating around over Earth like that... yikes. The sharpness of the pics gives me a feeling of just how empty empty space is, no air to fuzz up the pics.

I too hope they make it home safe, they seem like a nice bunch of people and have handled the pressure admirably.

those are some great pictures, thanks for sharing. i use to spend alot of work hours browsing the nasa photo's from my office.

Awsome pictures.

As for the problem, my guess is that this is quite normal but this is the first time they have checked for it.

Hard to say anything new about those images but they are seriously amazing. Is there anyone who would not fly on the shuttle if given the opportunity? I'd be front row if given half a chance.... Great finds pacifier & co.!

Wow, those are truly awesome. It would be unbelievable to space walk.

It's amazing something of that size travels in excess of 18k mph.

So not only are they astronauts, but great photographers as well. Hopefully National Geographic will run a series of these, or maybe Sky and Telescope.

Just to echo those above: Awesome. I like how haphazard the tiles on the Shuttle are arranged. A whimsical, human touch.

Why does the astronaut's visor have a reflective coating on it? I thought it was "dark" in space...

It is definatly southern Spain/northern africa as you can see in the following picture taken with NASA's World Wind:

http://img295.imageshack.us/img295/4...864322n5sv.png

And the original..

http://www.spiegel.de/img/0,1020,501979,00.jpg

damn, good call Bagezio....i appreciate it. i couldn't figure it out for the life of me.

You still have the sun as close as on Earth, but no atmosphere to filter the light, so you get a MUCH stronger light, with a much higer percentage of harmful UV in particular. If they didn't have that coating they'd go blind.