http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/09/science/space/09wilford.html?_r=1&ref=science

“The Last Shuttle Leaves an Era Behind”

Space, the final frontier, has been an area of great emphasis throughout the last century.  Starting with the Apollo missions and the space race which led to the more modern shuttles sent up to monitor and repair the International Space Station.  Sending up the last shuttle ends an era of exploration, an era of guts, an era of glory, but there is hope. For NASA has shut its doors to space in the past.

Since the mid-twentieth century there have been countless amounts of Shuttles, Atlas Rockets, and other space vehicles sent into the final frontier. This window is now closing for countless dreams of children to somehow make it to space. NASA is closing off any manned missions, but they are still sending up shuttles. 

There is hope however “Foreseeing the end of shuttle flights, the Obama administration and NASA last year proposed new plans, approved by Congress, to develop heavy-lift rockets for sending people deeper into space, to be ready perhaps after 2020.”  As the 135^th space shuttle lifted off at 11:29 it left many people wondering when they would see another American leaving for space.

I believe that in the near future there will be shuttle flights, although for now the many child-hood dreams have been crushed to a pulp. There is hope I say to all of those children, there is hope.