Amazing footage of Space Shuttle Atlantis coming in to land.To accentuate how fast this spacecraft falls, notice this video has them starting at 84,000 feet (15.9 miles up) and the touchdown occurs just six minutes later. That’s a rate of 14,000 feet a minute (233.3 a second) [note: the elevation of the runway at Edwards is 2,312 feet ASL but the Shuttle altimeter is calibrated for that]. Talk about falling like a rock, it’s not free-fall but damn close and probably feels like going down the “big hill” of a perpetual roller-coaster ride (233 feet in a second is probably close). The runway is 15,000 feet long and accounts for the curvature of the earth over that distance to be perfectly flat.  The right turn at the end (HAC-Heading Alignment Circle) is designed to scrub the last bit of altitude and to line up the orbiter with the runway. In this instance they are landing on runway 22; the black lines extending from the runway on short-final are actually drawn on the dry lake-bed of Rogers Lake. Listen to how harsh the nose gear touchdown is. For more on this mission check this out: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/STS-98 For more on the Shuttle landing procedure see this link: http://wiki.ssm-fans.info/landing