Space Shuttle: The End of a Mediocre Era

Soon after the end of the Space Shuttle program, space lovers all over the world are reacting quite strongly to the end of the a program that has been flying since before I was born. Massive crowds intended to go see the last launch of Atlantis, and I'm sure STS-135 will become a a famous occasion commemorated by parties among space geeks. I'd like to throw a party as well - an "it's finally over" party. Though the future of US manned spaceflight is certainly bleak, the shuttle program represented pretty much everything that's been wrong with NASA since the Apollo program ended, and the long break between now and Orion might very well give us a chance to clear off the weight of the last few decades and fix the deep institutional problems in their manned spaceflight division once and for all.