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As NASA prepares to launch its last space shuttle — ending 30 years in which large teams of creative scientists and engineers sent winged spaceships into orbit — it is facing what may be a bigger challenge: a brain drain that threatens to undermine safety as well as the agency’s plans. Space experts say the best and brightest often head for the doors when rocket lines get marked for extinction, dampening morale and creating hidden threats. They call it the “Team B” effect. “The good guys see the end coming and leave,” said Albert D. Wheelon, a former aerospace executive...

CAPE CANAVERAL — The last shuttle, Atlantis, sits on Pad 39A, ready for its valedictory flight. It is the nature of a shuttle to look kind of lonely out there on the pad, kept at a safe remove from the control room, the hangars, the observation platforms. The pad is not far from the beach, one of the last stretches of Florida coastline unblemished by hotels and condos. Beach houses were torn down years ago when the federal government showed up with rockets. Old-timers talk of 11 graveyards and an old schoolhouse lurking somewhere out there, the remnants of the...

On the eve of the final mission of the U.S. space shuttle program, most Americans say the United States must be at the forefront of future space exploration. Fifty years after the first American manned space flight, nearly six-in-ten (58%) say it is essential that the United States continue to be a world leader in space exploration; about four-in-ten say this is not essential (38%).... Majorities in nearly all demographic groups say it is essential that the U.S. continue to be at the vanguard of space exploration. And partisan groups largely agree that American leadership is vital, although this view...

Explanation: In the final move of its kind, NASA's space shuttle Atlantis was photographed earlier this month slowly advancing toward Launch Pad 39A, where it is currently scheduled for a July launch to the International Space Station. The mission, designated STS-135, is the 135th and last mission for a NASA space shuttle. Atlantis and its four-person crew will be carrying, among other things, the Multi-Purpose Logistics Module Raffaello to bring key components and supplies to the ISS. Pictured above, the large Shuttle Crawler Transporter rolls the powerful orbiter along the five-kilometer long road at less than two kilometers per hour....

Deorbit burn scheduled for 1:29am (weather permitting). Landing at Kennedy Space Center scheduled for 2:35am.

[Credit: NASA] Explanation: What's that rising from the clouds? The space shuttle. If you looked out the window of an airplane at just the right place and time last week, you could have seen something very unusual -- the space shuttle Endeavour launching to orbit. Images of the rising shuttle and its plume became widely circulated over the web shortly after Endeavour's final launch. The above image was taken from a shuttle training aircraft and is not copyrighted. Taken well above the clouds, the image can be matched with similar images of the same shuttle plume taken below the clouds....

The picture at right isn't something you see every day, and it's something there'll only be one more chance to capture: a Space Shuttle launch photographed from an in-flight passenger jet. Stefanie Gordon shot this image of the Space Shuttle Endeavour's launch with her iPhone as her plane descended for a landing. The shot itself is a rare enough event, but what happened next was an eye-opener for the photographer. According to Mashable, within a few hours of uploading the launch pics to Twitter from her iPhone, Stephanie was getting phone calls from ABC, CNBC and the BBC. Her...

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. – While NASA is already planning the particulars of how to retire its space shuttles —– including announcing this week which museums will get to display them — a bid to continue flying the orbiters as a commercial service is still in the works, even if it is considered a long shot, SPACE.com has learned. United Space Alliance (USA), a prime NASA contractor, is working on a plan to commercially fly the Atlantis and Endeavour space shuttles twice a year following the construction of a new external fuel tank. The idea was first discussed in February but...

President Obama plans to bring his family to the launch of the space shuttle Endeavour on April 29 to see Rep. Gabrielle Giffords's husband lead six astronauts into space. Giffords wrote on Twitter: "We are very happy that Pres. Obama is coming to Mark's launch! This historic mission will be Endeavour's final flight." The Orlando Sentinel reports that Obama decided to attend for a few reasons, one of which was that he was going to be in the state already to speak at Miami Dade College's

When President Obama speaks, don't interrupt. That's what the president told a Texas reporter after a brief but contentious interview in which he was challenged about his unpopularity in the state. "Let me finish my answers next time we do an interview, all right?" he told WFAA News 8 reporter Brad Watson. During the interview, one of four that Obama held with Texas media in the White House on Monday, the president argued that even though the Lone Star state was historically Republican, his election meant that the politics there was changing. "We lost by a few percentage points in...

The battle over those retired space shuttle orbiters is getting nasty. And personal. That's good news for the news business. The most recent combatants are New York Sen. Chuck Schumer, a liberal Democrat who is considered one of the leading "camera hogs" on Capitol Hil", and Texas Rep. Ted Poe, a conservative Republican who spent more time at the House microphone than any other lawmaker in 2010. This latest tiff started when Schumer had a one-word response to Texans (and their allies) who are pushing legislation to overturn NASA director Charles Bolden's decision to award New York City (and not...

Congressman Ted Poe is demanding answers from NASA. The Texas Republican says he was shocked to hear that Houston was denied one of the four retired space shuttles. On Tuesday, NASA Administrator Charles Bolden announced Atlantis will go to Florida, Endeavour will be sent to California and Discovery was awarded to the Smithsonian's Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center near Washington Dulles International Airport. The prototype orbiter Enterprise, which was used for testing but never flew in space, will be sent to the Intrepid Sea, Air & Space Museum in New York City. "NASA made a mistake," Poe said during a Sunday...

NASA: Instead of awarding our retired space fleet to museums, we should be awarding contracts to go to Mars and beyond. Once we triumphed over the vacuum of space. Now we face a vacuum of leadership. A nation whose world leadership was unquestioned once held its breath as an American spacecraft placed American astronauts on the surface of the moon. It was a triumph of exceptionalism that was officially laid to rest this week as a nation held its breath to see which museums our space shuttle fleet would be awarded to. In these difficult economic times and with a...

NASA administrator Charles Bolden announced today the four museums -- the Smithsonian Institution (Discovery), the California Science Center (Endeavour), Kennedy Space Center (Atlantis) and the Intrepid Sea, Air & Space Museum (Enterprise) -- that will receive space shuttles for public display after the fleet retires this summer. As expected Houston, the home of human spaceflight, was snubbed. It's a shame. Houston's campaign, Bring the Shuttle Home, probably deserves some blame for being late to the game in terms of politicking for an orbiter. But I'm not sure any campaign could have saved Houston. The politics of this decision were pretty...

The one. The only. The last

Skywatcher Rob Bullen of Forest of Dean, Gloucestershire, England caught this snapshot of shuttle Discovery as it approached the International Space Staiton on Feb. 26, 2011. Discovery was flying its final mission, STS-133.

Well this is final live thread of the Space Shuttle Discovery. I'm going to miss seeing those birds..

Space shuttle Discovery docked with the International Space Station for the final time at 2:14 p.m. EST Saturday, where it will make a last delivery to the orbiting space lab -- before parking ultimately at a museum. The two spacecraft were flying about 220 miles above western Australia at the time they docked for the 11-day mission to deliver supplies, spare parts, an extra storage module and a humanoid robot assistant to the International Space Station. Two spacewalks are also planned during the shuttle's week-long stay at the orbiting lab. The shuttle and station crews will open hatches and hold...