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Sadly the NASA's last space shuttle blasted into history for the last tim   Sadly the NASA's last space shuttle blasted into history for the last tim
By Salar Golestanian @ 09 Jul 2011 :: Article Rating
 
Atlantis launch on Friday morning was the last of NASA’s space shuttle flights. The event marks the end of a 30 year program that has put nearly 800 people in orbit, but I hope that it is not the end of space exploration in the United States. Companies have been engaging in a private sector space race alongside and in partnership with NASA for quite some time.

It will be at least three years or even possibly five or more before astronauts launch again from U.S. soil, and so this final journey of the shuttle era packed in crowds and roused emotions on a scale not seen since the Apollo moon shots.

After days of gloomy forecasts full of rain and heavy cloud cover, the spaceship lifted off at 11:29 a.m. with just 2½ minutes delay on the 135th shuttle mission 30 years and three months after the very first flight. The four experienced space fliers rode Atlantis from the same pad used more than a generation ago by the Apollo astronauts.

NASA waived its own weather rules to allow the liftoff to go forward. In the end, though, the countdown was delayed not by the weather but by the need to verify that the launch pad support equipment was retracted all the way. When there was that delay - watching it on BBC News, everyone thought that is it. there is going to be be a 24 hours delay at least. 

The crew will deliver a year's worth of critical supplies to the International Space Station and return with as much trash as possible. Atlantis is scheduled to come home on June 20 after 12 days in orbit. Before taking flight, Commander Christopher Ferguson saluted all those who contributed over the years to the shuttle program. see BBC news here.

For the next few years, it will be the private companies that will be doing the launches. We will be bringing you some of the hot project news here in my Science Blogs
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About Scifiwood News Reviews and Blogs
These are various short and long News Articles, Reviews and Blogs by Salar Golestanian and employees of SalarO.com as well as contributors of Scifiwood.com. The subject matter are mixed topics with Pure Science to Science Fiction as well as general topics on Web Trends, Technology, Software Engineering genre, or whatever subject that can affect the convergence of today's technology with Science Fiction in any shape or form.  These Blogs and Reviews don't have commercial or corporate aspiration, so they are indeed completely independent views. Some of these entries may be short and just link you to the actual news or site that can expand further on the subject of interest.  In Phase II we plan to incorporate some Social Networking applications within the portal.
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