Godspeed sts-129!

I'm saddened to see the end of the shuttle program and the end of the US's leading role in space exploration. Once the shuttle is grounded the US will have no means to put people into space. We will depend on the Russians to get our people to the International Space Station. Even the Chinese will be capable of launching manned space vehicles. The Europeans and Japanese are beating us in payload launch capability too. Our nation will regret not funding the sciences a decade ago! The bulk of new research and the resulting tech-related patents is now taking place outside the US. The demise of our manned space program is a symptom of this decline. Even MIT has seen a significant drop in the number of US-born engineering and physics graduates. Less than 25% of last years graduate students were from the USA. Foreign students used to stay here too to work for NASA and other research organizations. Now, partially as a result of draconian immigration and visa rules, they leave for Asia and Europe. They also leave because America doesn't foster science and mathematics as well as Asia or Europe.

We have sent 105 Shuttles into the sky. 104 have come back safely. That is a great launch success and safety acomplishment

Every other Nation on Earth has sent O Shuttles up and 0 have returned. This includes the EU. Asia, China and Russia.

You are not going to accomplish much in space unless you have people going out.

This Shuttle mission carry two Black Americans. 1 Dr. Robert Satcher is the Ortho Dr.

It is not talked about but Humans decline quickly and come back slowly from being in space. All of this will have to be over come for extended stays and in getting off the Rock To Other Worlds. If Humans are to continue they will one day have to do that.

I still get chicken skin when ever I see a Shuttle take off or land.

God Bless America and Free Market Capitalism.

I still don't understand how we would be retiring the space station in only 5 years when we havent even finished construction on it. I also thought that it would be a more permanent base of operations.

"Every other Nation on Earth has sent O Shuttles up and 0 have returned. This includes the EU. Asia, China and Russia."


You're forgetting about the Soviet shuttle, which did make one unmanned orbital flight in 1988, and was landed by remote control, a capability NASA doesn't have. The program was canceled in 1989 and the Buran orbiter was destroyed in a hangar collapse in 2002.

The fact that the Soviets weren't interested in continuing Buran flights, the fact that NASA's shuttles have never achieved their intended cost savings and have proven rather dangerous (1/50 launches result in loss of vehicle and crew), the fact that Orion is going back to capsules, and the fact that none of the private companies developing orbital capabilities plan shuttles (capsules only) shows that the US Shuttle program wasn't all it was supposed to be.