Last week, I found out that the Space Shuttles are going to be retired next year. Currently, NASA is looking for the shuttles’ final home: several institutions consider displaying America’s Expensive and Great Leap Of Faith Into Space. Sarcasm aside, seeing the first Space Shuttle take off and land, and that all live on TV: as a young kid, that was fairly amazing, yes. However, I’ve never been a fan of manned space exploration (previously on xsamplex).
Slightly more exciting: it’s the 20th anniversary of the Hubble Space Telescope, and NASA celebrated that with this pretty picture of ‘Mystic Mountain’. What can I say about the Telescope? I remember that the initial launch and deployment were not that successful and that thanks to the Space Shuttle, the ‘Scope wouldn’t have been making as pretty as pictures as it does now.
The Telescope, however, will last for a couple of more years and is to be replaced by the ‘Webb Telescope’ in 2014.
May 15, 2010: Atlantis’ Last Voyage.