The space shuttle Endeavour got off the ground in a dramatic nighttime launch very early this morning. The launch of STS-130 was the last scheduled night launch in the shuttle program.
Only four shuttle flights remain after this one. Given President Obama's new approach to manned spaceflight, these final few shuttle missions may also be the last few times NASA launches its own astronauts. If so, they will be the end of an extraordinary period in human history. The last signs that human beings ever existed may not be the Pyramids of Egypt, or even the fossil record. Rather, they could be the Apollo landing sites on the Moon. Various probes, of course, are currently on their way into interstellar space, but they could easily never be discovered by any other civilization.
Of course, before President Obama's policy is official, Congress will have to go along with it, which is not a foregone conclusion just now.
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