Twilight Launch

If all goes as planned, space shuttle Discovery will launch Monday morning just before local sunrise. That should make the ascent to orbit easy to see across a large area. Increasing that opportunity will be the flight path. Instead of barreling out over the Atlantic as usual, this mission will fly up the East Coast, so many people from Florida to the Carolinas will be able to see it. Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, saw the first flight of the Wright Brothers, and not quite 107 years later-- within a long human lifespan-- may glimpse one of the final space shuttle missions reaching for orbit.

NASA recently executed the last planned night shuttle launch, the last planned night landing, and now has the last planned twilight launch on tap. It's sending the shuttle into retirement in style.