Just One Left

The second-last Space Shuttle flight ended yesterday:

Caption: Space shuttle Endeavour on the STS-134 mission made its final landing at the Shuttle Landing Facility at Kennedy Space Center, Wednesday, June 1, 2011, in Cape Canaveral, Fla. Endeavour, completed a 16-day mission to outfit the International Space Station. Endeavour spent 299 days in space and traveled more than 122.8 million miles during its 25 flights. It launched on its first mission on May 7, 1992.

Image Credit: NASA/Bill Ingalls

There's just one flight left, which will be performed by Atlantis. After that, there will be no manned space flight by a NASA vehicle for at least five years.

UPDATE (Jun. 3): Yesterday's Astronomy Picture Of the Day was this:

Image credit: NASA/APOD

The Shuttle is moving so quickly across the planet that the earth lights are blurry. The stars were a little more stationary relative to the point of view of the photographer, so they aren't as blurry.

Clicking on the picture will enlarge it somewhat. If you want a bigger version, click on the "Image credit" link to be taken to the APOD page. Clicking on the picture there will get you the full size version.

That's the way I want to remember Endeavour, helping to build the space station that is by far our biggest presence in space.