Quote Of The Day

Caption: Taken by an Italian astronaut as he was departing the International Space Station, this photo shows the Space Shuttle Endeavour on her last mission. Click on the picture to enlarge. Full sized image.

Image credit: Paolo Nespoli/NASA

Referring to photos like the one that leads this article, lizpolaris writes at Corrente:

How incredibly ironic - now it's finished, the US will never have the capability to visit the ISS again. I suppose it's our gift to the world. The best our society could do and now we've inspired others to take up the quest of space.
...
My daughter will turn 30 next week. The first shuttle flew 2 months before she was born, when I was 7 months pregnant. I could only imagine the world she would inherit. This crumbling, greedy, crass country was not what I had in mind.

'Majestic' shuttle picture encapsulates US' fading glory

Nor would I have imagined this is the country we would be living in thirty years after the Shuttle first flew. As I mentioned in April, the Obama Administration has started a new program to develop a manned launch vehicle, but whether that ever comes to fruition at all, let alone in the operational lifetime of the ISS, is anyone's guess.

It's just another reminder of what we've lost.