With the departure of the shuttle mission brought the multi-purpose Module "Leonardo" is not only the final element of the U.S. segment to the International Space Station ISS. He paid with a humanoid robot for routine work on board and - preventive - with large-caliber replacement parts for the upcoming years.
In the joy of the six-man crew under Commander Steve Lindsey on the successful fulfillment of the program, but also mingled with sadness. After almost 27 years, the Discovery out of service. She is due to recall in a museum in glorious times. So the countdown begins for the other two space shuttles Endeavour and Atlantis. In April and June, they start the last time Then the shuttle program, which was launched in 1981, adjusted for safety and cost reasons. Thousands of NASA employees have already lost their jobs to follow by others will follow.
Commander Lindsey said in a CBS interview even from space, the American nation could be "proud" to be what got the "Discovery" had done. It was a "unique science laboratory that could all". At the same time it depressing that no "ready-successor" was ready. However, he hoped that America sometime in the future in such a "powerful spaceship" would have.
The history of the space shuttle is a success story. She has been at its 39 missions, exactly one year away and has thereby brought more than 250 astronauts and cosmonauts more people into space as her "sisters". After the Challenger - and the Columbia disaster in 1986 and 2003, the Discovery sent back the first into space. She had to Eileen Collins, the first woman pilot and later with the first shuttle commander. Among her most prominent crew members were U.S. Senator Jake Garn in 1985, 1994 Sergei Krikalev was the first Russian and 1998, the 77-year-old veteran astronaut John Glenn as the oldest man in space.
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