Shuttle Atlantis is on the 135th Shuttle mission, and the last shuttle mission.  Atlantis will be docking with the space station, or what I call the interstellar money pit.  The crew of Atlantis will be delivering a years worth of supplies, the last mission, a supply run, how nice.  That’s not all though they will also be bringing out the trash.  A 12 day mission is planned with an extra day possible so I’m certain there is a bit more to it then that, but honestly, who even cares anymore?  Well I do so I looked it up,  the years worth of supplies, over 5 tons should hold the crew over long enough for the next delivery, By who?  Two companies actually Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX ) and Orbital Sciences Corp. They’re building unmanned cargo ships to take over. Initial test flights are expected later this year or early next. Weird huh, unmanned commercially owned spaceships. Where the hell is my jetpack is what im thinking and why can’t I get a ride on one of these things for less then a million.

 

In the meantime, US Astronauts will be the Solar Systems newest hitchhiker’s, catching rides with the Russian Soyuz capsules until, well until nothing.  We have no plans for any new ships, or capsules of our own.  In 2004 president Bush announced the closing down of the shuttle program and directed NASA to start looking at the moon again.  Well, alright the moon could be neat our technology now compared to the last time there is so far advanced I’m sure it could be worthwhile.  Plus they owe us a Moon base to go with my Jetpack. Be honest now you want them too.  Now, President Obama has change it to going to an asteroid by 2025, exciting huh, they better have Jetpacks by then, I’ve seen Armageddon, they could have used some jetpacks.  Then we head to Mars, which I think we should do now, I know we can, you can look it up there are actually clear plans, several of them in fact. I’ll volunteer to go.

When Atlantis returns, it will be put on display at the Kennedy Space Center. Discovery and Endeavour already are retired and being prepped for museums in suburban Washington and Los Angeles.  The original test shuttle Enterprise will be relocated from the Smithsonian to the Intrepid sea-air-space museum in NY.  Challenger exploded in 1986 during lift off, Shuttle Columbia was lost in 2003 during reentry, Both shuttle crews have Memorials at Arlington National cemetary.

So Ends an era, to be replaced by… Nothing.  John Glenn, Neil Armstrong and Jim Lovell have made their concerns known to the Obama administration.  I personally think we should all add on to that, so Im writing some letters today to my representatives, I want us to continue into space.  We should go back to the moon, and Mars, and someone should go check on poor Pluto while we are at it (still a planet in my book) and finally… I want my damn jetpack.

 

If you like that picture up top, you can get it on a t-shirt  go to thinkgeek.com do a search on the word Shuttle.  I took that pic off my shirt. 🙂