Last 4 shuttle astronauts arrive for countdown
July 4, 2011 By MARCIA DUNN , AP Aerospace Writer
(AP) -- The four astronauts who will close out NASA's space shuttle program are at their Florida launch site, eager for a Friday takeoff.
Commander Christopher Ferguson and his crew flew into Kennedy Space Center from Houston on Monday, the Fourth of July. NASA staff handed them small U.S. flags, as their launch director greeted them out on the runway.
The four will take Atlantis on the last flight of NASA's 30-year shuttle program. Atlantis will make a supply run to the International Space Station, before joining Discovery and Endeavour in retirement.
Ferguson says it will be a busy 12-day flight. But when it's over, he says the astronauts will be "very proud to put the right-hand bookend on the space shuttle program."
©2011 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
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Not true-- the US will always have the power to put a man into space, it's just that we won't temporarily. NASA is looking into cheaper, more reliable vehicles to transport crews into space, such as the Falcon 9 rocket by SpaceX, an all-American private company. This rocket can hold 7 people, and the last time NASA ever launched 7 people at one time was on Challenger. NASA needs to give up its bulky space shuttles to move onto something new. These new rockets will be much cheaper, allowing even more launches by NASA; they plan on using them by 2015.