STS-120 Has Begun

The flight of Space Shuttle Discovery got off to a fine start this morning, rocketing into a blue Florida sky.

This mission will be commanded by a woman, Pamela Melroy, and the lead, most experienced spacewalker on the complex construction mission will be another woman, Stephanie Wilson. This is surely the first space mission in which two women have had such prominent positions. Oddly, it comes after a summer of Lisa Novak, an astronaut who seems to have gone off the deep end, at least temporarily. Melroy and Wilson will no doubt perform at a higher standard.