Ex-astronaut's advice to child: 'Study Russian'

The Discovery shuttle flew for the last time Tuesday, beginning in Cape Canaveral, Fla., on the back of a 747, looping around the monuments in Washington D.C., and landing in Virginia, where it will ultimately be transferred to the Udvar-Hazy annex of the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum.

In Washington, onlookers left buildings and stood on rooftops to watch the shuttle and its escort circle the city.

NASA retired the shuttle program last month with Discovery’s final space flight, and as P.J. O’Rourke recently wrote, the state of the U.S. program is unclear:

But the U.S. space program is short of machinery, muddled about goals, and low in morale. The space shuttle has been retired. Thousands of NASA employees and contractors lost their jobs. We have no way to get a man into space except by asking Vladimir Putin, “Mother Russia, May I?”

The Bush-era Constellation program, with its moon and Mars capabilities, was canceled. Neil Armstrong called the decision “devastating.” The Augustine Commission, an Obama administration panel of scientists, retired astronauts, and aerospace experts chaired by former Lockheed Martin CEO Norman Augustine, judged Constellation to be hopelessly behind schedule, underfunded, and over budget. I’m glad they didn’t judge me. Read More