Endeavour Safely Home

The STS-118 mission ended successfully today as Endeavour landed safely at Cape Kennedy. There had been some unease about the decision not to attempt a repair of the gouge in the shuttle's heat shield before re-entry, but NASA proved to be correct.

Eleven more shuttle missions are scheduled to fly over the next three years, including two more this year. That's a schedule comparable to the heyday of the program. After the shuttle is retired in 2010, private vehicles will have the American manned spaceflight stage to themselves for a few years. until NASA's deep-space Orion spacecraft is ready to take people back to the Moon and beyond.

That, at least, is the current plan. Successful private spaceflight could easily build support for manned missions beyond low Earth orbit, on the theory that non astronaits will soon follow. The next step in reaching that exciting period is retiring the shuttle fleet on time, and without another tragedy.