Space shuttle Discovery makes final landing

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. –  Space shuttle Discovery buzzed metropolitan Washington, D.C., Tuesday morning, soaring over the Washington Monument, the White House and the Capitol before landing to begin its new life as a museum relic -- following three decades of space service for NASA's oldest and most traveled shuttle.

Discovery will be towed Thursday to its installation at the Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum annex near Dulles in northern Virginia.

Thousands had packed the National Mall in front of the Capitol to watch the pair swoop by, as Discovery took a leisurely spin at an easy-to-spot 1,500 feet (450 meters) overhead. And they took to Twitter, using the tag #spottheshuttle to compare notes.

"Just saw the shuttle fly by. Hoping to see it again on its return into Dulles. Cool moment in history!" wrote one user.

"There are actually no words for how cool that was. Not ashamed to say I cried," another user wrote.

"Look at that -- that thing is mammoth," said Terri Jacobsen. She brought her 12-year-old son to the mall to watch the flyover.

Discovery departed Florida's Kennedy Space Center at daybreak Tuesday aboard a modified jumbo jet bound for Washington, where it will become a Smithsonian exhibit. The shuttle-jet combo is set to land at Dulles International Airport.

Nearly 2,000 people -- former shuttle workers, VIPs, tourists and journalists -- gathered along the old shuttle landing strip earlier in the morning to see Discovery off. A cheer went up as the plane taxied down the runway and soared into a clear sky.

The plane and shuttle headed south and made one last flight over the beaches of Cape Canaveral -- thousands jammed the shore for a glimpse of Discovery -- then returned to the space center in a final salute. Cheers erupted once more as the pair came in low over the runway it had left 20 minutes earlier and finally turned toward the north.

A similar flyover was planned over the monuments in the nation's capital, later in the morning.

Discovery -- the fleet leader with 39 orbital missions -- is the first of the three retired space shuttles to head to a museum. It will go on display at Dulles International Airport in Virginia, taking the place of the shuttle prototype Enterprise. The Enterprise will go to New York City.

Endeavour will head to Los Angeles this fall. Atlantis will remain at Kennedy.

NASA ended the shuttle program last summer after a 30-year run to focus on destinations beyond low-Earth orbit. Private U.S. companies hope to pick up the slack, beginning with space station cargo and then, hopefully, astronauts. The first commercial cargo run, by Space Exploration Technologies Corp., is set to take place in just another few weeks.

For at least the next three to five years -- until commercial passenger craft are available in the United States -- NASA astronauts will have to hitch multimillion-dollar rides on Russian Soyuz capsules to get to the International Space Station.

Colombia scandal 'embarrasses' US Secret Service

Cartagena scandal 'involved 20 women'

The US Secret Service prostitution scandal involved as many as 20 women, 11 American agents and some military personnel, senior US officials say.

Senator Susan Collins, briefed by the Secret Service director, said 20 women were found at the US hotel.

The incidents took place in Cartagena, Colombia, ahead of last weekend's Summit of the Americas.

On Monday, the head of the US armed forces said the Secret Service and the military had "let the boss down".

Secret Service Director Mark Sullivan was "rightly appalled by the agents' actions and is pursuing a vigorous internal investigation", Ms Collins said in a statement.

"He ordered all the agents to return to Washington immediately, and all have been interviewed," said Ms Collins, the top Republican on the Senate's Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee.

Speaking to reporters on Tuesday, Ms Collins, a Republican who represents Maine in the Senate, also said she had asked Mr Sullivan a number of questions during her phone briefing.

"Who were these women? Could they have been members of groups hostile to the United States? Could they have planted bugs, disabled weapons, or... jeopardised [the] security of the president or our country?"

Speaking to reporters afterwards the senator said some agents "were uniformed personnel who are assigned to building security". Others were "these specialised agents who do security details", she said.

Two of the agents were senior personnel with salaries at the top end of the government's pay scale, the Washington Post reported.

All 11 agents have been placed on administrative leave and had their security clearance revoked. They were not directly involved with presidential security.

Also on Tuesday the White House said it had confidence in the director of the Secret Service to investigate the incident, adding that he had addressed the matter quickly.

'Embarrassment'

On Monday a senior official told the BBC that at least 10 military service members were also under investigation, double the five that was originally reported.

General Martin Dempsey said the military did not know exactly what had happened in the Colombian city of Cartagena, a colonial city on the country's Caribbean coast and venue for the Summit of the Americas.

"What we do know is that we distracted the issue from what was a very important regional engagement for our president," he said, adding it was an embarrassment for the agency.

On Sunday, the US president said that he expected a "rigorous" investigation.

"If it turns out that some of the allegations that have been made in the press are confirmed, then of course I'll be angry," Mr Obama said.

Details of what happened on Wednesday night are still coming to light. The group of military and secret service agents were partying at Cartagena's Pley Club, which has been described as a high-end strip club in an industrial part of the port city.

Members of the secret service paid $60 (£38) each to the club's owners to bring at least two women back to the Hotel Caribe, where they were staying, the Washington Post reports.

The next morning one of the women demanded more money and a dispute ensued.

ABC News has said the agents were bragging about their work for the president, telling their company that evening: "We're here to protect him."

Pilot Mistakes Venus for Oncoming Aircraft, Sends Plane into Nosedive

A fatigued and groggy Air Canada co-pilot mistook Venus for an oncoming aircraft and slammed the control stick forward, sending the plane into a momentary dive that injured 16 passengers. The Transportation Safety Board of Canada released a report on Monday about the January 2011 incident that found “sleep inertia” to blame for the co-pilot’s misjudgment.

The flight’s first officer caused the incident after waking up from a nap on the long-haul flight from Toronto to Zurich, Switzerland. His snooze was permitted under a sanctioned procedure known as “controlled rest,” which is said to improve a pilot’s alertness and performance during overnight flights. But while only supposed to sleep for 40 minutes, the first officer dozed off for 75 minutes, sending him into a presumably deep sleep.

The first officer awoke as the captain, who had been controlling the plane, noted an approaching U.S. Air Force jet 1,000 feet below. But groggy and not yet fully alert, the first officer saw a light above the plane and thought it was the Air Force aircraft descending toward them. In reality, it was the planet Venus – though that realization came only after he sent the Boeing 767 into a 400-foot nosedive. “Under the effects of sleep inertia, the first officer perceived the oncoming aircraft to be on a collision course and pushed forward on the control column,” the report notes.

Fourteen passengers and two crew members, none of whom were wearing their seatbelts despite the seatbelt sign being illuminated, were launched out of their seats and hit their heads on the ceiling. Seconds later, they were slammed to the floor as the captain pulled back on the control stick to regain altitude. Many injuries were minor, but when the flight landed safely in Zurich, seven passengers sought medical attention at local hospitals.

But the first officer was unable to sleep off the incident – the investigation lasted more than a year. Air Canada is considering implementing better rest policies for pilots.