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Those lucky enough to still be here to look back at history post Barack Obama will recognize the last sight-piggyback funeral dirge of the once noble Space Shuttle as the Obama Regime’s defining moment. Were an artist to paint a picture of a small boy looking at up at his flying kite as the space shuttle passed over Manhattan yesterday, no portrait of the story of America’s deliberate ruin at the hands of a single politician could ever come closer to the truth. [BIG Snip of text] Few will remember that it was on the fullest moon of the year...

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT RUSH: I saw it again today, space shuttle, Enterprise this time, flown from Washington to New York, numerous fly-bys over New York City. It's eventually gonna end up on the Intrepid, the Air and Space Museum, the Intrepid, the aircraft carrier. Do you know the Intrepid, for those of you old enough -- by the way, it's a great place to visit, if you have not been, on the west side of Manhattan. They've got an SR-71 Blackbird on the deck now. It's antique aircraft, World War II-era aircraft, Vietnam-era aircraft. They're gonna have to move some out...

NEW YORK (CBS-New York) -- Space shuttle Enterprise will soon begin its final voyage to its new home in New York City. The shuttle is being airlifted on the back of a 747 from Washington’s Dulles Airport. It will then fly over New York City before landing at John F. Kennedy International Airport. Enterprise was the first shuttle ever to be built by NASA. It never flew into space, but Enterprise paved the way for others that did. NASA engineers used the Enterprise to figure out how to land a shuttle, launching the glider from the back of a modified...

Technicians had worn them for decades as they prepared the space shuttles for their move from Kennedy Space Center’s three Orbiter Processing Facilities to the towering Vehicle Assembly Building, and eventually the launch pad. “Bunnysuits,” those white coveralls with floppy hoods and rubber-banded booties, were designed to keep dirt and debris from contaminating the orbiter interiors. But on this summer day in one Orbiter Processing Facility, technicians working inside Discovery’s crew module wore street clothes. No need to worry about contamination: Discovery would not be returning to space. After flying 148 million miles and orbiting Earth 5,830 times, Discovery, first...

Drop whatever you're doing and watch this. NASA has released videos shot from onboard the Space Shuttle's Solid Rocket Boosters in the past, but you've never seen one prepared as masterfully as this. For one thing, the footage was shot in high definition, so the image is exceptionally clear. But what puts this video head and shoulders above most other rocketcams is the sound. The audio has been remastered by the folks over at Skywalker Sound (yes, that Skywalker Sound), and the final product is nothing short of incredible.

The night before the 1986 explosion, Boisjoly and four others argued that joints in the shuttle's boosters couldn't withstand a cold-weather launch.

Explanation: Why would the shadow of a space shuttle launch plume point toward the Moon? In early 2001 during a launch of Atlantis, the Sun, Earth, Moon, and rocket were all properly aligned for this photogenic coincidence. First, for the space shuttle's plume to cast a long shadow, the time of day must be either near sunrise or sunset. Only then will the shadow be its longest and extend all the way to the horizon. Finally, during a Full Moon, the Sun and Moon are on opposite sides of the sky. Just after sunset, for example, the Sun is slightly...

Exceptionalism: While the American space program is in a museum, Beijing orbits a nearly 9-ton space station module. Soon men will return to the moon, but they will likely be speaking Chinese. While America was scanning the skies waiting for an aging satellite to fall to earth, China was looking to the skies and seeing its future. On Thursday, Beijing launched into space aboard a Long March 2F rocket a space station module weighing 8.5 metric tons that will serve as a prototype for a 60-ton Chinese space lab to be in orbit by 2020. Americans may yawn and say...

WASHINGTON — The risk of an unprecedented evacuation of the International Space Station will spike if Russian craft cannot resume their missions and return by November, a senior NASA official has warned. "There is a greater risk of losing the ISS when it's unmanned than if it were manned," Michael Suffredini, the ISS program manager for the US space agency, said in a conference call with Russian officials. "The risk increase is not insignificant," he added. Russia on Monday delayed its next manned mission to the ISS by at least a month after an unmanned cargo vessel crashed into Siberia...

NASA says astronauts may need to abandon the International Space Station this fall. If Russian Soyuz rockets remain grounded beyond mid-November, there will be no way to launch new crews before the current residents are supposed to leave. A Russian supply ship was destroyed during liftoff last week. The rocket is similar to what's used to launch astronauts. NASA space station program manager Mike Suffredini said Monday that flight controllers could keep a deserted space station operating indefinitely.

I know this isn't news, but many FR'ers will enjoy this. It is an astounding 360 degree view of the Space Shuttle Discovery flight deck during decommissioning. Space Shuttle Discovery Flight Deck 360VR

A piece of the ill-fated space shuttle Columbia has surfaced in eastern Texas, where a severe drought has dried up a lake and exposed debris from the 2003 accident, NASA said Tuesday. The globe-shaped object that turned up in Lake Nacogdoches, north of Houston, was one of 18 tanks on Columbia that helped power the shuttle, said NASA spokeswoman Lisa Malone. Member of NASA's Columbia Reconstruction Team is pictured at the Kennedy Space Center in 2003 "Late last week, we were contacted by the Nacogdoches sheriff's office letting us know that they had found an item of what they thought...

The state's worst drought since the 1950s has led to the recovery in East Texas of a large piece of debris from space shuttle Columbia, which disintegrated over there nearly a decade ago. Officials in Nacogdoches made the discovery Friday as waters in Lake Nacogdoches receded during a relentless drought that began last October. “The lower water level has exposed a larger than normal area on the northern side of the lake,” said Nacogdoches Police Department Sgt. Greg Sowell. The Nacogdoches officials sent photos to NASA and the space agency confirmed the debris on Tuesday as a fuel tank that...

Space Shuttle Atlantis made its final landing today at the Kennedy Space Center in Orlando, Florida officially marking the end of NASA’s 30 year-long space shuttle program that included 5 vessels, 135 missions and millions of gallons of fuel. We are sad to see the space shuttle go — it is endlessly amusing to watch people float in zero-gravity — but we are a little relieved to know that the blast of emissions from each shuttle launch will no longer be spewing into the atmosphere adding to the effects of global warming.

The final Space Shuttle mission ended last week, amidst calls for Washington to cut spending. The Shuttle program cost over $200bln, not to mention 14 lives, while giving little in return. Clearly a Shuttle launch was a majestic site; no one had ever assembled a machine so complicated that had to perform perfectly. Still, at over $400 million per pop, these are expensive warm-fuzzy moments. The Shuttles’ accomplishments were few. They launched satellites that could have been delivered to orbit cheaper by unmanned rockets. They built a space station that replaced an existing station – both of which served no...

Explanation: The Parkes 64 meter radio telescope is known for its contribution to human spaceflight, famously supplying television images from the Moon to denizens of planet Earth during Apollo 11. The enormous, steerable, single dish looms in the foreground of this early evening skyscape. Above it, the starry skies of New South Wales, Australia include familiar southerly constellations Vela, Puppis, and Hydra along with a sight that will never be seen again. Still glinting in sunlight and streaking right to left just below the radio telescope's focus cabin, the space shuttle orbiter Atlantis has just undocked with the International Space...

Well this is it folks.. It has been a fun ride. It is a shame that I didn't get to see those birds launch in person. Oh well should have moved to Florida.

Explanation: What's that astronaut doing? Unloading a space shuttle -- for the last time. After the space shuttle Atlantis docked with the Mike Fossum underwent a long spacewalk that included carrying a Robotics Refueling Mission (RRM) payload from Atlantis' cargo bay to a platform used by the space station's famous robot DEXTRE. On Earth, the RRM box would have the weight of about three people and be much more difficult to carry. Pictured above on the far left, DEXTRE prepares to help move a failed space pump back to Atlantis. Visible behind the astronaut is the space station's Kibo Experimental...

Friday marked the space shuttle's swan song, as the Atlantis lifted off from the Kennedy Space Center for the program's 135th and final flight. It was President George W. Bush who announced the shuttle's retirement with his 2004 "Vision for Space Exploration," which included a moon base and "human missions to Mars and to worlds beyond." But it was President Obama who put the kibosh on that vision, canceling the moon project and leaving "worlds beyond" in doubt. "We are retiring the shuttle in favor of nothing," Michael Griffin, Bush's NASA administrator, wailed to the Washington Post recently. Here, as...

Explanation: Space shuttle orbiter Atlantis left planet Earth on Friday, July 8, embarking on the STS-135 mission to the International Space Station. The momentous launch was the final one in NASA's 30 year space shuttle program that began with the launch of the first reusable spacecraft on April 12, 1981. In this reflective prelaunch image from July 7, Atlantis stands in a familiar spot on the Kennedy Space Center's pad 39A, after an early evening roll back of the pad's Rotating Service Structure. The historic orbital voyages of Atlantis have included a Hubble Space Telescope servicing mission, deployment of Magellan,...