Damaged brakes and blown tires have been a chronic problem in shuttle landings.

The shuttle landing took forever, the craft settled down very slowly and very gently.

A safe way to get munitions and food to troops on the ground when a shuttle landing is impossible sounds great.

Near both the research shuttle and then- own, they could see another, differently designed shuttle landing.

The chuchaki put up with the first shuttle landing, but there's a limit to what they'll tolerate.

Kirk noticed there no longer were soot smudges from the shuttle "landing" and realized he must have taken the time to clean up.

The postponement was the seventh time in 32 missions that a shuttle landing has been delayed because of weather, equipment problems or other flight requirements.

"It'll be rather a challenge to keep someone from noticing a nearby shuttle landing, sir," said Beeker.

"I had never gone through weather like that before on a real shuttle landing," he said.

Over more than a decade, I had witnessed dozens of shuttle landings.