CNN news 2012-04-19 加文本

cnn news 2012-04-19

AZUZ: First up today, a new museum display in Washington, D.C., that`s out of this world, at least it has been. The space shuttle Discovery reached its retirement home yesterday. Before we talk about that arrival, John Zarrella looks back at the shuttle`s history and space travel`s future.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Booster ignition.

JOHN ZARRELLA, cnn CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): February 24th of last year, the 39th and final liftoff of the shuttle Discovery, 148 million miles traveled over a quarter-century.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Discovery now making one last reach for the stars.

ZARRELLA (voice-over): The oldest of the three orbiters, Discovery was the first to be retired. At first light Tuesday morning, this time, no roar of rocket engines, just jet engines, riding piggyback on a 747. Destination: permanent display at the Smithsonian in Washington.

ALVIN DREW, MISSION SPECIALIST STS-133: This things just beckons, like come on I can take this on again, come on, just hop in. Let`s fire up and go again.

ZARRELLA (voice-over): The astronauts who flew Discovery that last time are here to watch her off.

STEVE LINDSEY, COMMANDER OF DISCOVERY STS-133: It`s sad in that we`re done, and, you know, she`s going away. On the other hand, she`s going to the Smithsonian where hopefully millions of people over the next gazillion years are going to get to go see Discovery.

ZARRELLA (voice-over): The U.S. now relies on the Russians to ferry its astronauts to the International Space Station. The cost, about $60 million dollars a seat. NASA is stuck with this arrangement for at least the next four years. That`s until a commercial company is ready.

DREW: I am confident that commercial space will eventually succeed and do great things. If you asked me to put my money on any one company and say this company is going to be the one that does it or succeeds, I don`t know, they just don`t -- I just -- they are all taking very different approaches.

ZARRELLA (voice-over): Space X hopes to be that company.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We have liftoff of the Falcon 9.

ZARRELLA (voice-over): It has already orbited its Dragon Spacecraft around the Earth. At the end of this month, the company`s toughest test to date, an attempt to rendezvous its unmanned Dragon and berth it to the space station. By then, Discovery will be on display.

Enterprise, a test shuttle which was in the Smithsonian, will be in New York, going to the Intrepid Museum.

STEPHANIE STILSON, DISCOVERY FLOW DIRECTOR: For me personally, once we get Discovery to the Smithsonian and we`ve done all the work and she`s ready to go and now it`s my time to walk away and leave her there, I`ll now start focusing on Enterprise and getting Enterprise up to New York. But that`s going be very hard to leave Discovery for that last time.

ZARRELLA (voice-over): At least now, everyone will have the opportunity to look up close at a space flying machine unlike anything ever built.

AZUZ: Discovery will be formally welcomed to the Smithsonian collection during a ceremony tomorrow. After that, people can visit the famous flyer at the museum.

AZUZ (voice-over): But a lot of folks had the chance to check out Discovery on its way to that retirement spot. They gathered around the National Mall or at other spots in D.C. to watch the shuttle and its carrier as they approached Washington. The pilot seemed happy to accommodate the crowd, circling the mall a few times for pictures and cheers.

Eventually, Discovery did come in for a landing, not the only shuttle going on display, though. You heard John Zarrella mention that Enterprise is heading to New York. Endeavour will be at a museum in Los Angeles, and Atlantis will stay on display at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

We want you to watch the left side of your screen closely here. All right. You see that? Kind of looked like the sun burped up some energy. Well, that was a solar flare. NASA`s Solar Dynamics Laboratory caught this on video. Looks pretty impressive, but scientists say that on the scale of solar flares, this one was just medium-sized.

Sometimes these kinds of eruptions on the sun can have an impact here on Earth. Not this one, though. The spot where this happened was pointed away from the planet when the flare erupted.