This View of Life 

I guess there's no questioning that i love space science. The manned missions are particularly stimulating because we are "boldly going"...it's like Science Fiction brought to realization. But...i have always hoped that the outdated shuttle system would soon be replaced with newer and more competent spacecraft.
   This mission, Discovery STS133, will be one of the last shuttle missions before these spaceships are retired. Since the USA presently has no replacement for them we will likely be hitching a ride in Russian Soyuz capsules (a technological step backwards in my opinion).
   Although private American companies are developing new solutions to getting astronauts into Earth orbit, it seems it will be a while before we have another functional "space plane". So, while i'm glad to see these old and often unreliable spacecraft retire, i will miss the sight and excitement of the shuttle missions....of seeing a ship blast off into "The Final Frontier" and fly back down to land on a runway.
Here's hoping the next "Enterprise" isn't too far off in our future.

http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/imagegallery/iotd.html

To those men and women who are exploring the final fronteer. To all the STS crews.