Welcome home, Atlantis.... you are now history.

[dogboy]

The end of an era...

[thesaintv12]

Wow, what a photo!

I really hope we get to see man visit the moon or beyond again in my life time.  Looking back to the technology of the landings it sometimes makes me feel that we have gone backwards with real groundbreaking technology which pushes the limits of what we have available to us and what teams of people are capable of. 

I remember watching the early shuttle flights as a kid, I thought we would have been to Mars by now.

As soon as I have the money I am booking my space flight.  It's on my TODO-Before-Death list.

DB: can you post the link to the original picture?

[BoL]

Space exploration is one of America's greatest facets. Hopefully there'll be a day many years from now when the achievements have been furthered.

They'll look back and see this is where it all began.

[grnidone]

Is there a larger photo of that?  I'd like to set it as my background...beautiful!

[PaulH]

Awesome photo! shame to see such icon come to an end - but is a good thing, its outdated
Same was probably said when steam power come to an end.

The not so distant future http://www.spacex.com/falcon_heavy.php

[edo]

Nice link, Paul. SpaceX are just one of many private companies now pushing the envelope. About time too as I think there needs to be a profit motive for the space community to move forward. Too much politics involved with NASA and funding.

[dogboy]

I'm on my phone and the article I saw on yahoo now has a different image up, so I can't tell if it's just their mobile version is different, or they updated the news.

Yeah, out of all the shit we spend money on, this was not the program I'd shut down. I don't know. Maybe this will spark the private industry, for which America is still known, but wow... we have a space station up there thanks to this flying brick.

I guess we have to have a little faith someone out there will keep pushing the envelope. But it's a bittersweet day.