Endeavour's six astronauts have finished all training activities and administrative work. They will leave Johnson Space Center on Tuesday for their final prelaunch preparations and the lift off on Friday. After Endeavour returns to Earth, there will be one more shuttle launch in June 2011. There had been some doubt about the funding for this last flight, but the federal budget that was approved earlier this month includes funds for STS-135.

Atlantis will fly a bonus mission to stock up the ISS. It will have a full load of supplies and experiments packed into the Italian-built Raffaello logistics module. Upon completion of the mission, the crew of four will return to Earth with Raffaello filled with trash and selected items that NASA wants returned. This will surely be a historic last flight of a magnificent flying machine.

In fact, the shuttle has been referred to as the "most complex machine ever built and operated." Many space professionals would like to see the remaining three orbiters turned over to a commercial operator for use as a possible option in NASA's Commercial Crew Development (CCDev) program, but the odds of success appear low. It looks like STS-135 will be the last flight of America's partially reusable, crewed space launch system.

It will have been 30 years since the shuttle's first flight in 1981 until its retirement. A pioneer of the space age recently recalled that exciting time when the first shuttle was rolled out to Pad 39A at the Kennedy Space Center. It was early spring 1981 when he happened to be flying a Beechcraft Bonanza from Orlando to Washington, DC. On that morning after the rollout to the pad the weather was clear and the flying was smooth.

He figured: "Wouldn't it be great to fly over the pad and take pictures of the space shuttle as it was prepared for that first time from a historic launch pad?" Air traffic control said "sure," go ahead and enjoy the view, "but stay at 5,000 feet or above." "It was a once in a lifetime thrill to be able to circle the shuttle and snap a few pictures. Wow!"

After the shuttle is gone, the future of human space flight remains in question. The industry is depressed. American science and technology probably will not have the public support that was enjoyed over the decades of Apollo and Shuttle. How can we hope to excite our young people about science and engineering if the space pioneers are all but gone and the current space leadership is in a "status quo" mode?

Alas, there are still a few of us trying to create interest and excitement in a future of human space flight.

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