What does the end of the space shuttle program mean

And they say America will still lead the International Space Station. In Moscow, Abbey told us NASA should keep flying the shuttle indefinitely and in the meantime build a new space vehicle based on the technology it knows -- winged shuttles.

He insists the new rockets that NASA has planned are a step backwards. And he predicts more big layoffs in Houston and Florida when the shuttle program ends.

Many space experts say the fault lies with members of congress who are more interested in saving jobs in their districts than funding a long-range, comprehensive plan for America's space future.

Monday on Eyewitness News at 6pm, we will take you inside the Russian space program in both Moscow and Kazakhstan, a place few American reporters have been since the fall of the Soviet Union.

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Cosmos: Origin and Fate of the Universe. Astronomy's Moon Globe. Galaxies by David Eicher. Expected back in Florida early this morning, Atlantis was on its way back from the International Space Station after dropping off supplies and spare parts. After more than 30 years and missions, NASA is ending the shuttle program and retiring the craft that have ventured to the inky brink of deep space. Even the name, "space shuttle," served to conflate otherworldly wonders and utilitarian conveyance most often associated with a bus.

Deadly accidents that scorched the sky and seared the national consciousness, however, jolted us beyond complacency. While the end of the shuttle program means the end of the NASA flights to the space station, it does not mean the end of space exploration. Well, just that the space shuttle orbiters — those things that look like blocky, vertical airplanes — are being retired just as had been scheduled from the very beginning of the program.

But the end of this program comes at the time of another change: the shift of space exploration away from government and into the private sector.

For example, so-called reduced-gravity aircraft planes that fly through parabolic trajectories, giving the passengers the sensation of weightlessness have traditionally been operated solely by NASA. That was NASA. As a side note, the Yale Drop Team is a club that has performed zero-gravity science experiments on such planes as part of a NASA initiative.