The Last Reentry

The crew of the International Space Station took these pictures of the final flight of a space shuttle (Atlantis, STS-135).  I learned of these images from the August 1, 2011 edition of Astronomy Picture of the Day (APOD).
 

...and yet...

Today's APOD has a picture of Atlantis making its last docking approach to the International Space Station.

I've long felt that the Shuttle was a terrible mistake for NASA - fragile, expensive, limited in usefulness. I can't help but think that we could, instead, have gone to Mars, pursued a much more robust robotic planetary exploration program, and in general gotten a lot more for our money.

And yet - the images, the hardware, the teamwork required to fly these monsters are inspiring.

I'm glad the program is ending - and I will miss it.

Then and Now

Today is the 50th anniversary of Alan Shepard's 15 minute suborbital Mercury flight, which initiated the U.S. manned space program. According to the NASA press kit for the MR-3 launch, the combined height of the launch vehicle and spacecraft was 83 feet, with a liftoff weight of about 66,000 pounds.

Compare this to the lift-off of the space shuttle Atlantis on the nearly 12 day STS-132 mission. The NASA press kit for STS-132 lists combined weight of the shuttle system at launch as 4,519,769 pounds, with a height of 184 feet.

Mercury Redstone 3 and Atlantis are perhaps the bookends for the NASA manned spaced program; the last flight of Atlantis (STS-135) may well be the last time U.S. astronauts fly aboard spacecraft designed and built by NASA.