The end of an Era

The Shuttle Atlantis touched down, ending the 30 year long space Shuttle era...
Anyone else felling melancholic over this?..

I remember watching the first launch on TV

I was just outside and heard the last of the double sonic booms. This morning we could actually see the shuttle heading in the sky is clear the sun hasn't come up yet. Really quite a sight and sound.

Saw it fly over the my house at about 6.45pm tonight. I must admit I wept a tear. It was moving west to east but whilst watching it we all saw an object travelling from east to west just north of it. Does anyone know what it was?

So is that it for the entire space program?

Why shut down the space shuttle, why now?

One era ends, another era begins:

The shuttle's successors

The thing looked dated...
hail the new space shuttle....!

Originally posted by HomerinNC
Anyone else felling melancholic over this?..

Not one bit. I'm glad that flying deathtrap is finally decommissioned so the torch can be passed onto new technology. Hopefully.

Yea it's about time they shut it down. Huge waste of money considering what they were getting for it.

It's time to turn the space venture, minus research, over to private industry. If they discover oil on mars I can guarantee you we will have humans there within 10 years.

reply to post by HomerinNC


I grew up with the Shuttles. I wasn't even 1 years old when the first Shuttle launched, so I'm used to the Shuttles always being there. I'm definitely sad to see them go. I know that the Shuttles were far from perfect and didn't quite meet the original expectations, but they still accomplished a lot of great things in human space flight.

Originally posted by Maslo
One era ends, another era begins:

The shuttle's successors

In other words, there is no successor, yet.

I kind of thought when the shuttle program ended, we'd already have something else lined up. The fact that we don't is what makes me sad.