CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — Shuttle Endeavour and a crew of seven blasted off today on what was to be the longest space station mission ever, a 16-day voyage to build a gangly robot and add a room that will serve as a closet for a future lab.
The space shuttle roared from its seaside pad at 2:28 a.m., lighting up the sky for miles around. “God truly has blessed us with a beautiful night here, Mike, to launch, so let’s light them up and give him a show,” said Endeavour’s commander, Dominic Gorie.
In addition to working with their payloads, Endeavour’s astronauts will try out a caulking gun and high-tech goo on deliberately damaged shuttle thermal tile samples.
Japanese astronaut Takao Doi, who conducted postdoctoral work and taught at the University of Colorado at Boulder, is on the flight, which will is carrying biomedical experiments from CU.
