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The STS-135 flight was the last of any Space Shuttle flight, and this marks the end of the Space Shuttle era, which began some 30 years ago. The Space Shuttle, although quite flawed, was a pinnacle in space flight technology, but eventually was shut down due to too high costs. Here's an overview of this remarkable vehicle :

• Top 10 Space Shuttle moments
• Space Shuttle Era in 10 stories
• Space Shuttle fast facts
• Even ESA made a Space Shuttle site
• The 3 most active shuttles
• A guide to the Space Shuttle
• The Shuttle history in pictures
• A shuttle documentary movie called The 2nd assassination of JFK
• A 80 minute Shuttle movie spoken in by Captain Kirk

Some remarkable quotes :

• "Most people lament the end of the Space Shuttle. What's really sad, is that there is nothing to replace it."
• "1969 : The landing on the moon
  1981 : The start of the Space Shuttle era
  2011 : Nothing
  For anyone traveling backwards in time, the American Space program looks fabulous."

Asteroid 2011 CQ1 was discovered by the Catalina Sky Survey on February 4 and made a record close Earth approach 14 hours later on February 4 at 19:39 UT. It passed to within 0.85 Earth radii (only 5480 km !) of the Earth's surface over a region in the mid-Pacific. This object, only about one meter in diameter, is the closest non-impacting object in our asteroid catalog to date !

Prior to the Earth close approach, this object was in a so-called Apollo-class orbit that was mostly outside the Earth's orbit. Following the close approach, the Earth's gravitational attraction modified the object's orbit to an Aten-class orbit where the asteroid spends almost all of its time inside the Earth's orbit.

With flights STS-133 (launching at October 29th 2010) and STS-134 (Febrauary 29th 2011), the space Shuttle program will come to a halt. The program started in 1981, and was meant to provide a cost-saving alternative for the 'throw-away' Saturn rockets which were used in the 60ties and 70ties. The space shuttles Discovery and Endeavour will be the last shuttles going into space, delivering new scientific equipment to the International Space Station.

If you want to 'participate' in the last two shuttle missions, you can : through the Face in Space website, you can upload your picture, which will be taken on the shuttles, thereby be launched into orbit and "become a part of history".

Feeling lost in our galaxy ? Take the Milky Way transit authority map and find the nearest exit to Sagittarius A !

Create your own paper model of the ISS, Space shuttle or Soyuz capsule today ! (Warning : instructions in Italian)