LIVE: STS-134 Flight Day 17 - EOM - RE-ENTRY and LANDING

[butters]

It's sad to see another orbiter retired, but I'm satisfied that the Shuttle program saw the International Space Station through to assembly complete. The Shuttles -- perhaps especially Endeavour -- really came into their own as orbital assembly platforms.

The vehicles outlasted the mission. That's a remarkable achievement for humanity's first crack at a reusable spacecraft. It's a strange thing that so many people are unable to recognize victory and unwilling move on. We built the ISS. It was probably the most complex thing humans have ever done, but we did it, and we did it well.

So it's time to declare victory and move on to the next challenge. There's so much more to do in space, and the only way we can snatch defeat from the jaws of victory is to try to keep doing what we're doing after the doing is done.

Let's remember that Shuttle was the product of a "gap" in the 1970s. We're been here before. It wasn't the end of the world. It produced a space program that was undoubted different in vision and character than the Apollo program it followed, but we loved it just the same, and it is ending on a high note with an achievement that is every bit as grand and complex as landing men on the moon: we built our own moon in the sky. And it was Shuttle that made it happen.

Why should we be upset that we completed exactly what we set out to do?

[Satori]

[Satori]

[dsky]

Hate to be the bearer of bad news but most Americans don't have a clue or care. In fact most americans are:

1. uneducated
2. stupid
3. both
4. selfish (a big problem in this country)

Americans are not alone in this.

[Satori]

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[butters]

Looks like Taz's legs aren't too thrilled about gravity.

[Satori]

[chksix]

Looked for a second as if they rolled off without Vittori. He headed back towards Endeavour with another ESA astronaut.