The Space Shuttle Program has come to an End

Today the Space Shuttle Atlantis landed and with that comes the end of the shuttle program. Next stop, I imagine, for the shuttles will be a museum for public viewing.

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Shuttle Atlantis Has Left The Building

The crew of the space shuttle has packed up and left the ISS for the last time. They are preparing to return to Earth this Thursday for the last and final landing of the shuttle and marks the end of the space shuttle program.

Space.com has a detailed account of the activities of the crew as they prepare to return home.

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Space Shuttle Atlantis Visible this Weekend

The Space Shuttle Atlantis will be visible in the early evening sky over the weekend. Remember, this is the last year of the manned space shuttle program by NASA, so try to take advantage of any opportunity to see the shuttle in action:

Skywatchers across the continental United States will get a fine opportunity this weekend to watch as the space shuttle Atlantis — on its final scheduled mission into space — chases and ultimately docks with the International Space Station (ISS).

Both the shuttle and space station will be visible as separate entities, each appearing as bright "stars" sailing across the evening twilight sky on Friday and Saturday. By Sunday evening, Atlantis will be docked to the ISS, and both will appear as a single bright moving "star."

During Friday, Saturday and Sunday evenings, both Atlantis and the ISS will make a number of favorable passes across the contiguous U.S. Their respective ground tracks will take them on northwest-to-southeast paths. With a very few exceptions, between one and four crossings of both the shuttle and the ISS will be visible.

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Spring Cleaning at NASA

Since this year is the last year of the space shuttle program, they seem to be going into all the nooks and crannies and cleaning out stuff and deciding who will get what. From the article:

You may get a chance to see the container that holds their, well, you know, astro poop.With the shuttle fleet scheduled to retire later this year, NASA is cleaning out warehouses and storage rooms and offering space artifacts to certain organizations such as schools and universities, museums and libraries.

I doubt I want to see the potty the astronauts used, thank you very much! I find what the astronauts do interesting but not in such detail!

The Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex was tentatively allocated 119 items, although officials don't know exactly what all of the items are. The artifacts won't be delivered until the shuttle program ends or as the items are phased out of production.

You can read the rest of the Article HERE and I am sure more news will pop up this entire year since the space program is sadly ending.

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Space Shuttle Retires and 23,000 Jobs will Disappear

Sadly, NASA is going to have the budget cut for manned space flight and this coincides with the retirement of the current space shuttle program which will end this year 2010. This in and of itself is a shame because NASA has led the way in technology for sending people into space, but it looks as if the private sector may begin to work on space craft capable of sending people into space as well as the European Space Agency. Another consequence to this budget cut will be the loss of 23,000 jobs, yes, 23,000 jobs!
From the article:

Revised projections now show that about 23,000 workers at and around Kennedy Space Center will lose their jobs because of the shuttles' retirement and the new proposal to cancel the development of new rockets and spacecraft.
IN-DEPTH SPECIAL REPORT: Shuttle ShutdownThat sum includes 9,000 "direct" space jobs and -- conservatively speaking -- 14,000 "indirect" jobs at hotels, restaurants, retail stores and others that depend on activity at the space center, said Lisa Rice, Brevard Workforce president.
"Our unemployment rate is going to skyrocket," she warned Thursday during a five-hour Brevard County Commission space workshop. Much conversation centered on the future of human space launches from KSC, and attendees heaped criticism on Obama's strategy.

I do not see the economy turning around to the positive side for many years or maybe ever, so I do not know what will happen to space travel. Since I am a science fiction lover and I dream of space travel, meeting alien life, and traveling the Universe, this seems like a big setback, for a while anyways.
Here is the article about the 23,000 jobs to be lost.

Star Trek First Contact and WW3

As I was writing about the end of the current space shuttle program, some thoughtful commenters were aware that political and financial times may impede any progress in the manned space program and private enterprise may be the next phase in space travel advancement. These thoughts reminded me of the movie Star Trek: First Contact (1996), in which the crew of the Enterprise travels back through time at the point when humans are about to make first contact. As described in the film, Earth had suffered through world war three which managed to wipe out a majority of the Earth´s population and world governments. This was in the year of 2063, according to the movie, the humans were living in encampment-like buildings, it all looked very humble, yet they had superior technological skills and Zefram Cochrane was the character who had the skills and ability to make the first warp spacecraft. He said his reasons were for money, not some noble cause to better humaity. From that point on, first contact is made and thus we have the beginning of the Federation.

The point in the summary of the movie is that society had to reach a point were people were on their own without the direction of government and doing things in a private and capitalistic manner that ends up being good for humans. The few people who remained had to cooperate, think for themselves, and find a way to survive and go on with life without depending on daddy government. When true capitalism is applied, you rise and fall on your own merit, there is no bail-out. I wish we could get to that point without going through all the pain and destruction, but if you listen to economists such as Marc Faber, Jim Rogers, and Max Keiser, you will see that the world is headed for very tough times. They all have videos on YouTube that are worth listening to, and yes we must have hope for a better future, but we must also be realists as well.

An End of an Era for NASA

The final night flight for the space shuttle Endeavour is scheduled for the 7th of February 2010, but the year 2010 also marks the last of the space shuttle flights and thus ends an era of the current space shuttle program which began flying and orbiting the Earth in 1981. The space shuttle Columbia made its first trip to outer space the 12th of April 1981 and I remember it as if it were yesterday. The flight was short, only two days, and the landing took place in California, I also remember the double sonic boom! It is amazing that these spacecraft have lasted so long and worked so hard, but it is long overdue that a new line of shuttle is created and put to work, thus the final flight is scheduled for the 31st of May 2010 and you can bet I will watch and feel a little nostalgic and yet look forward to the next generation of spacecraft named Orion which is expected to come into service in the year 2015. I look forward to that day! The design looks interesting and unique and I cannot wait to see it in action.

You can read more HERE.