Quentin Schwinn, NASA
Despite a troubling four-inch block of ice that had NASA techs running around with visions of flaming tragedy two hours before launch, the shuttle Discovery took off around 11:38 this morning without a hitch. Commander Pamela Melroy is only the second female shuttle commander in history, and she leads a team who plan to perform the most complex orbital additions ever to everyone's favorite crumbling camper-van-in-space: the International Space Station.
The crew will help install Harmony, an Italian-built living compartment the size of a bus. No word on whether Harmony includes Natuzzi leather couches or DeLonghi espresso machines, but a group of 130 schoolchildren who named it in a competition got to attend the launch.
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