CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — 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 is scheduled to blast off at 11:26 a.m. Friday 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.
Anyone wishing to track the space station can check out www.n2yo.com.
Currently, the International Space Station is home to Satoshi Furukawa, Mike Fossum, Ron Garan, Alexander Samokutyaev, Sergei Volkov and Andrey Borisenko (Commander), all from different countries, including Japan, Russia and the United States.
NASA recently announced that it will be launching its final historic flight for the space shuttle program on July 8. Four astronauts are preparing for the flight to deliver supplies and spare parts to the space station. They were placed under quarantine on Friday to prevent illness and limit exposure to any harmful germs, NASA stated.
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