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I am personally saddened by this event. Nonetheless here is the video of Endeavor's Last Journey http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZSIWnHtgc-g Being from the "Sputnik" generation this seems like such a loss. From another poster "Our nation is so heavily promoting STEM and yet with the down sizing of the NASA program, we lost thousands of brilliant people who already made the US top in the world of technology, mathematics, and science."

I, too, are also saddened by the fact the shuttle program has shut down. I firmly believe that we should have had a replacement for the shuttle before downsizing the space program. Yes, we did lose quite a few people that helped us put us at the top during the space program. Who knew that the education system will be using the acronym STEM at the same time downsized one of the best occupations that used all areas. I hope a future President will bring back the space program and not leave most of it to private enterprises. I will definately be watching the video clip: Hawaii is too far for me to have gone to watch the shuttles arrive at their destination.

NASA's Space Launch System is supposed to be in place by 2014. You can read about it at http://www.nasa.gov/exploration/systems/sls/ . So we are not giving up space exploration, just a brief pause to get the new system in place. But I will miss the shuttle launches too. After having seen a night time shuttle launch, I don't think anything else will compare to it!

Growing up during the 60's with all the excitement of the moon landings I never imagined that in 2012 we would not have gone to Mars or back to the Moon by now. Many of us got our interest in math and science education because of the dream of exploring space. I am hopeful that I will live long enough to see a human walk on Mars, and future generations get excited about learning math and science. NASA has a interactive website that is fun to view on their future plans. http://www.nasa.gov/exploration/home/index.html