Looking Towards Home

The crew of Endeavour is back in the orbiter, preparing to undock from ISS later today after what has been a highly successful mission to date.

That's generally the case. For various reasons, NASA probably doesn't get as much recognition for the consistent delivery of results in manned spaceflight as it should. Some Mercury and Gemini flights didn't go quite as planned, Apollo 13 was a desperately close call, and two shuttles and their crews have been lost, but NASA has gone for years at a time, flying complex and dangerous missions-- from landing on the Moon to repairing Hubble to building ISS-- with nothing but meeting mission objectives. It's a record organizations operating in less challenging areas would be doing well to equal.

Hopefully, if NASA takes a less direct role in manned spaceflight down the road in favor of private operations, ways will be found to carry the best of The NASA Way with us as we push deeper into the Solar System.