Just about now, the US Space Shuttle Discovery is docking with the International Space Station. (You can watch these things live over the web on NASA TV by the way).
Just to reinforce that spaceflight is never mundane (or particularly risk-free), Discovery with a mass of 100 tons and the ISS with a mass of 200 tons are orbiting the earth at an altitude of about 190 nautical miles while travelling at 17,500mph. For all this, the Space Shuttle will make it’s final approach at a relative velocity of just 1/10th of a foot per second for a gentle docking.
Even then as I understand it, as the shuttle docks, a rapid assessment of the induced oscillation to the ISS structure is made with the option to immediately undock the shuttle again if it is judge to be too great (Somebody correct me if this is wrong).
Update: Discovery has now colli^H^H^H^H^Hdocked with the ISS.
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