Final NASA shuttle mission clouded by rancor

WaPo ^ | 07/01/2011 | Joel Achenbach

[The Magical Mischief Tour]

CAPE CANAVERAL — The last shuttle, Atlantis, sits on Pad 39A, ready for its valedictory flight.

It is the nature of a shuttle to look kind of lonely out there on the pad, kept at a safe remove from the control room, the hangars, the observation platforms. The pad is not far from the beach, one of the last stretches of Florida coastline unblemished by hotels and condos. Beach houses were torn down years ago when the federal government showed up with rockets. Old-timers talk of 11 graveyards and an old schoolhouse lurking somewhere out there, the remnants of the era before the coming of the spaceport.

Now the U.S. space program itself is middle-aged, facing a painful transition. Atlantis will blast off, if all goes as planned, at 11:26 a.m. July 8 for a 12-day mission to the international space station. And then . . . what?

Then a lot of uncertainty. The only sure bet is that thousands of people here will be out of a job.

NASA’s critics say the human spaceflight program is in a shambles. They see arm-waving and paperwork rather than a carefully defined mission going forward. NASA has lots of plans, but it has no new rocket ready to launch, no specific destination selected, and no means in the near term to get American astronauts into space other than by buying a seat on one of Russia’s aging Soyuz spacecraft.

The space agency’s leaders say everything’s on track, that the private sector will soon launch astronauts into orbit and let NASA focus on the hard work of deep-space exploration.

[JRandomFreeper]

For some inexplicable reason it would have taken 15 years to develop. It's cancelled now.

And the free-market Dragon spacecraft with a capsule capable of carrying 6 humans is working (but it's taking NASA a long time to man-rate it).

Government isn't the solution, unless you need lots of dead people. Governments are good at that.

/johnny