Dustin Barbour

Space Shuttle Atlantis made a stop-over here at Columbus AFB on the back of its 747 carrier today… just a quick stop to get some gas before continuing on to Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Here are my pictures of the event… nothing spectacular on my part. The last image is a panorama stitched together from five pictures by a program called Hugin. It’s not perfect as I could have optimized it a bit better, but it was really more a proof of concept than anything else. As for Atlantis, there’s a post about it coming through Columbus on NASA’s website.

Update on 4 JUN: According to the Wing Commander, Col Roger Watkins, the ground crews here were able to service the aircraft pretty quickly allowing the SCA to takeoff and make it to Kennedy Space Center just in time to avoid busting the aircrew’s duty period. So had they taken any longer here at CBM, the shuttle would have been forced to stay overnight allowing for some sweet sunset pictures. But alas… the ground crews were too good. Col Watkins received compliments on what may have been the fastest turn around in the SCA’s career.