Atlantis' return to Earth, scheduled for Thursday, will conclude the 30-year-old U.S. space shuttle program, with no replacement U.S. spaceships ready to fly.
NASA has hired two private firms, Space Exploration Technologies and Orbital Sciences Corp., to resupply the station beginning next year. Russia, Europe and Japan also fly freighters to the station.
Astronauts will fly aboard Russian Soyuz capsules at a cost of more than $50 million per person, until and unless U.S. companies are able to offer similar transportation services. Several firms, including Boeing, Space Exploration Technologies and Sierra Nevada Corp. are developing passenger spaceships, but none are expected to be ready until about 2015.
The first U.S. space taxi to reach the station will return home with a prize. In an emotional farewell ceremony Monday, Ferguson presented the station crew with a small American flag that flew during the April 1981 debut flight of sistership Columbia.
The flag was mounted on the vestibule wall of the compartment that leads to the shuttle's now-obsolete docking port. It is promised to the first U.S. company that flies astronauts to the station.
NASA wants to reply the flag aboard the first of its planned spaceships that are designed to carry astronauts to asteroids, the moon and other destinations beyond the station, where the shuttles cannot go.
Atlantis is due back at the Kennedy Space Center at 5:57am. EDT (1157 GMT) on Thursday.
Article Source KBG Test Blog (http://rc.kbg.me)
