Final Shuttle Landing
126 views · Published 21 July 2011 · 4:23 · Indexed 8 October 2026
For the first time in more than 30 years, there is no space shuttle in orbit or waiting to take off.
The program ended today with the return of the shuttle Atlantis to Earth.
A NASA flight director says tears were flowing on the runway at Cape Canaveral after the pre-dawn landing. The commander of the Atlantis mission said that after 30 years of flights, the shuttle has "earned its place in history."
NASA's long-term goal is to send people to asteroids and to Mars -- but it hasn't yet settled on a rocket design for those flights.
Private companies are getting ready to take over the job of sending spacecraft into orbit and back. It will be at least three to five years before Americans are again launched from U.S. soil.
