Final flight
THE touching down for the last time of Atlantis marked the end of an era in manned space flight. The emotional return home of the men and women known as the “final four” brought to a conclusion the 135th mission of a space shuttle programme in a journey that has charted some 542 million miles, circled the earth more than 20,000 times and taken more than 350 people from 16 different countries into space.
America’s manned missions to explore the stars have become another casualty of the crippling budget deficit which has brought the land of dreamers back to earth with a bump, 42 years after humans first stood on the Moon. Clearly the world’s only superpower will have to make many more painful adjustments as it shores up its finances.
What feels like the end of an era, however, could yet prove to be the beginning of a new one. As Nasa focuses on building a rocket to take men to Mars, hope springs again.
Clearly any mission to the red planet is decades away but the history of space travel shows us that the first and most important step is having the ambition to get there.