From operational vehicle to museum piece in one swoop

Image Credit: NASA

Less than an hour ago, the space shuttle Atlantis touched down at the shuttle landing facility at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Today she went from an operational vehicle with 32 missions to orbit, over 120million miles traveled, and 25 years in service, to a museum piece in one high speed swoop.

I selected the image above, from NASA here, as I felt that Atlantis's empty cargo bay - seen here docked to the space station near the end of the just completed STS 132 mission, represents the near future of human space flight with the end of the shuttle program and the cancellation of Orion/Constellation. Lots of things could be added to it, but currently it stands empty.

Mike