Birds and planes have experienced a high profile recently, thanks to the exciting, and safe landing in the waters of New York. Careful planning and emergency rehearsals are what make for positive results. And so it is with NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida who since 2005 have looked heavenward to watch for flocks of birds to ensure that they didn't interfere with the launching and landing of the shuttles. NASA In the wrong place at the wrong time, a bird is silhouetted against the clear blue Florida sky (upper left) as it falls away from Space Shuttle Discovery after hitting the external tank during liftoff of mission STS-114 in July 2005.

A NASA spokesperson reported that they have installed bird radar as a result of an encounter with a turkey vulture that crashed into the back of the space shuttle Discovery's external tank during NASA's first flight. The turkey vulture came out on the losing end of the encounter, and the Discovery was unscathed. However, from the lesson learned NASA established measures to prohibit future such incidents.

Steps taken to eliminate future happenings include vigilance on the part of the employees who are directed to call in reports of road kill surrounding the space center as it attracts hungry turkey vultures, not to mention that the center is in the middle of a wildlife refuge, the Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge. A misguided bird that collides with the landing space shuttle can cause enough of a disruption as to slow the descent enough so that it would land short of the final destination.

As a last moment precautionary measure, when tracking birds by radar during a launch the officials can actually postpone the launch by a few minutes to make time for a flock to fly out of harm's way, not to mention sound cannons that can scare the birds away. The space center stresses that they are mindful of the safety of the birds, but that precedence is the welfare of the astronauts.