“Now the Space Shuttle the second most remarkable spacecraft humans have ever build and flown”

Sigh.

I cannot believe you wield the COMPLETE AEROSPACE IGNORANCE to defend _BOTH_ the Concorde and Shuttle on EXACTLY THE SAME GROUNDS.

Since you clearly do not work in aerospace history, let alone design, please gain even a basic familiarity with airline operations before you display Concorde gushing again. Here, let me give you a tip: the Concorde and 747 both had their testing and first flights at the same time. Which one is still flying profitably today, and which one has NEVER turned an operating profit, EVER???

When you figure that one out, go look at launch operations before you display Shuttle gushing again. Here, let me give you a tip: the Shuttle and Ariane both had their testing and first flights at about the same time. Which one dominates the launch market to this day, and which one was abandoned by BOTH commercial satellite operators, THEN the Air Force within a few years? And THEN by NASA itself, when Administrator Goldin finally let probes fly on cheap rockets, unleashing a new wave of solar-system exploration?

I remember 2008 and the US Presidential race of that year between “Planetariums are the same as Overhead Projectors” John McCain and “Star Trek fan” Barack Obama.

What will we remember of what Obama hands over NASA~wise to his successor now?

No Space Shuttle fleet.

No Constellation program.

No James Webb Space Telescope it would seem right now.

I am so disappointed.

July 21st Australian time, 1969 Buzz Aldrin and Neil Armstrong walked on the Lunar regolith sticking a US flag into another whole world of dry seas and craters that they travelled to “for all mankind” ahead of the Soviet Empire.

Now we are forty-two years away from that temporal point in spacetime after we had succeeeded then so very superbly.

Apollo is ancient history.

That supersonic aircraft the Concorde is years gone and no more – nor replaced with suchlike planes.

Now the Space Shuttle the second most remarkable spacecraft humans have ever build and flown behind only that which took us to the Moon has terminated its glorious career. Also with nothing of its like extistent or in sight.

Are we going backwards or what?

Click on my name for link to latest news – or the latest I’ve seen online anyhow.

Vale, farewell, and thanks to the Space Shuttle and all who flew aboard her and all who helped design and watch over her on all her flights of superluminence. Thankyou. I’ll miss you.

So ends one of the wonders of our modern world. The Space Shuttle was a marvellous reuseable (mostly so) spaceplane.

135 shuttle flights – 133 successful and safe and rapturous landings.

That it has been retired was inevitable.

That nothing has replaced it already, that the United States of America is left hitching rides with the Russians was not. That fact is something I find both tragic and pathetic.

This last one so bittersweet. So many memories, so much science acccomplished, so much soaring joy provided.

Now all finished – and what next?

If I shed a tear, I’ll dab it with the many thousands or possibly even millions our projects will save. Oh, right… I shed NOT A SINGLE TEAR. “It’s sort of unbelievable” because you shouldn’t believe it, of any sort.

The Shuttle is immensley cool. It looks like the future, even now at 30 years old at its retirement. I’m really sad I never got to see it launch or land in person and now I never will. At least I got to watch the landing remotely.

It’s sort of unbelievable that the US now no longer has a way of getting into space. I grew up taking it for granted, clearly.

Goodbye, Shuttle. You were awesome.