USATODAY: The last-ever space shuttle mission —STS-135, in NASA parlance— is just days away. As with the old saw about how knowing one is to be hanged in the morning is a marvelous inducement to focus one’s thoughts, the final flight of Atlantis compels us to concentrate on what this ending means for the new beginnings that will follow.
The reasoning behind the shuttle retirement is straightforward. Its full range of capabilities is no longer needed now that the International Space Station is complete. And its budget must be diverted to pay for the next generation of spaceships.
But don’t expect Shuttle, The Sequel. These new crew-carrying vehicles will have different designs for different goals. Some — developed by private industry or leased from other nations — will be simple “space taxis” to ride back and forth to the space station. They’ll also be used to reach future privately built habitats a few hundred miles up. NASA itself is building another vehicle, formerly known as “Orion.” Its goal is to enable human flight much farther out into space — at first to various points in the Earth-Moon system, but eventually into interplanetary space… (more)
