Cumbrian Sky

The European Space Agency's "Jules Verne" ATV - or Automated Transfer Vehicle - succesfully docked with the International Space Station earlier today. ATV is a huge leap forward for Europe's space plans, a real building block for the future, and will also be an essential cargo ship for space station once the shuttle fleet is retired around 2010.

This graphic grabbed from NASA TV illustrates the true and amazing size of Jules Verne...

The docking was shown live on NASA TV, and although it wasn't as exciting as, say, watching a Mars rover land, it was still thrilling to see history being made there on screen. And history was made; without ships like Jules Verne there'll be no missions to Mars, or beyond, because the construction of these interplanetary ships will depend very heavily on succesful on-orbit construction. So, with its docking, Jules Verne might just have brought the day when man sets foot on Mars just a little bit closer...

(Full size version here if anyone wants one as a souvenir!)

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• #1 Comment from memes121 
  4/3/08 11:30 AM | Permalink

  Very cool! Tammy