End of space shuttle, end to US dominance of space?
July 6th, 2011 - 2:20 pm ICT by IANS
Washington, July 6 (IANS/EFE) The flight into space by NASA’s space shuttle Atlantis this Friday will mark end of the shuttle era, but many believe it may not also mean the end of US hegemony in the space.
Although NASA has led numbers of manned flights into space for three decades, no additional such flights are planned for the moment.
Top officials at the space agency, however, maintain this isn’t the end of this country’s manned effort in space, rather just the beginning of a new chapter.
“I don’t think this means the end of US crewed flights, but we’re in a period of uncertainty and we don’t know for how long,” Valerie Neal, the official in charge of the shuttle area at the National Air and Space Museum in Washington, told EFE.
“I think that what’s a little disappointing is that we really don’t have a clear vision of what it is that’s going to come after,” Neal said. “There’s uncertainty in NASA and among the general public.”
After this NASA shuttle flight, private companies will be in charge of developing the technology for future space vehicles.
This will enable the US space agency to focus on other projects, like working out the logistics of a manned Mars mission or travelling to an asteroid, two of the goals President Barack Obama set out in his new space strategy, says NASA director Charles Bolden.
Although, the companies with which NASA has signed agreements to develop new spacecraft “are making some optimistic predictions” about when the new space vehicles will be ready, Neal said, “the truth is that they have still not been prepared”.
As a nation, we are in “the final part of the second great era of space exploration,” similar to what we went through in the 1970s after the last Apollo mission, the programme that succeeded in putting men on the moon, he added.
NASA took almost a decade to develop and launch the shuttle programme, and it was not until April 12, 1981 - 20 years after Russian cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin became the first man to travel into space - that Columbia was sent into orbit, followed by Challenger (1983), Discovery (1984), Atlantis (1985) and Endeavour (1992).
Neal, whose museum will receive the Discovery to exhibit to the public in April 2012, said that the shuttles had been great spacecraft.
–IANS/EFE
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- End of US shuttle programme to leave thousands out of work - Jul 08, 2011
- NASA transfers shuttle Discovery to museum - Apr 20, 2012
- Space shuttle Discovery lands on Earth after final mission - Mar 10, 2011
- Atlantis' landing ends final mission after 30 years of space shuttle era - Jul 21, 2011
- Shuttle Discovery back to Earth post 13-day final mission - Mar 10, 2011
- Space shuttle Atlantis makes final landing - Jul 21, 2011
- NASA's space shuttle Endeavour ends final mission - Jun 01, 2011
- Atlantis docks for last time with International Space Station - Jul 11, 2011
- Shuttle Endeavour lands safely - Jun 01, 2011
- NASA presents new launch system with eye on Mars - Sep 15, 2011
- New crew head for space from same launch pad used by Yuri Gagarin - Apr 05, 2011
- Russian spacecraft docks with ISS - Apr 07, 2011
- Fewer women on NASA space flights: US astronaut - Oct 06, 2011
- NASA sets farewell shuttle launch July 8 - Jun 29, 2011
- Shuttle Atlantis returns home for last time - May 26, 2010
Tags: air and space museum, apollo mission, charles bolden, cosmonaut yuri gagarin, flight into space, manned flights, manned mars mission, men on the moon, nasa director, nasa shuttle, national air and space museum, new spacecraft, optimistic predictions, russian cosmonaut yuri, shuttle flight, space shuttle atlantis, space strategy, space vehicles, us space agency, valerie neal