Space Shuttle Atlantis lands for final time -- posted by Florida Fine Art Blog

Atlantis made its final landing at Cape Canaveral today. The Space Shuttle Atlantis, the last manned space craft built for NASA, began flying way back in 1985. She flew 32 missions, carried a total of 135 Astronauts into space and back, spent 282 days in orbit and traveled a staggering 115,770,929 miles. What a record! Atlantis' last voyage carried the art beads, "Beads of Courage" for kids dealing with cancer, a story I blogged about earlier. (That story can be found here) It is sad to think we are now in the process of retiring the Shuttle fleet without a replacement craft ready to take over. The two remaining Shuttles, Discovery and Endeavor, will make their last flights this year. For my entire life we have been sending men and women into space, now we will have to wait and hope for a new program to begin. There are some plans but no firm commitment. And as we wait and see, other countries like India and China are making their way to the moon. It has been 49 years since Alan Shepard took off from Cape Canaveral and started America's manned voyage into space. Let's hope the voyage continues.  GL
Space shuttle Atlantis lands for final time - KOLD News 13