With no clear vision of its future, NASA will cling a bit longer to its past, pushing the space shuttle retirement date off until March 2011 at the earliest.
That’s when shuttle Endeavour is now scheduled to return from the 134th and final mission in the 30-year-old shuttle program. It will deliver a 7.5-ton particle detector known as the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer, the most expensive and highest profile science experiment planned for the International Space Station.
NASA managers decided this week to delay launching its last two remaining shuttle flights to Nov. 1 and Feb. 26 to allow more time to prepare a load of spare parts for the station to fly on shuttle Discovery. Launch had been targeted for September.
Delaying Discovery’s launch to November, in turn, bumped the final flight on Endeavour to February.
The launch delays will bring a bit of a reprieve to thousands of space shuttle workers who will be needing to find new jobs. Many had hoped to work on a follow-on program to return astronauts to the moon, but the Obama administration has other ideas.
While change is never easy, the prospect of 20,000 engineers and technicians being turned lose in the marketplace to pursue -- and create -- new opportunities gives me reason for hope. That’s an awful lot of brain power on the prowl.
The Obama folks plan to grease the wheels with $40 million just for Brevard County, Fla.,aka "The Space Coast." Have an idea how the money should be used? Do share! The advisory group tasked to come up with a plan is soliciting proposals from the public. A report is due to the White House by Aug. 15.
Image credit: NASA
Tags: NASA, Space Commercialization, Space Shuttle, Space Station
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