It’s crazy to think that the shuttle program has been operating for as long as I’ve been alive. Now, after 30 years, 135 missions, and millions of space miles traveled, Lord Herndon and I were saddened to watch the Atlantis land for the final time.
April 12, 1981, the first shuttle Columbia takes off:
July 21, 2011, the last shuttle Atlantis lands:
In a society of one-time use and disposables, limited reserves of fossil fuels and increasing waste, NASA’s reusable, multiple-mission shuttles were an answer to the question of how to save our world. We just hope this isn’t the END, but only the beginning of something new.
