This morning Atlantis touched down on the runway at Kennedy Space Center, closing out the 30 year old Shuttle program.

After 135 launches the Space Shuttle leaves a mixed legacy. The promise of cheap access to Earth orbit and bi weekly launches was never realized. Two orbiters with 14 lives aboard were lost in preventable accidents. And the costs involved in maintaining the aging fleet in the 90s and 00s doubtlessly drew badly needed funds from the development of a replacement vehicle.

On the positive side of the ledger the Shuttle leaves behind 30 years of experience in living and working in space, scientific breakthroughs from research carried out on the orbiters and on the International Space Station, the launching and servicing of the Hubble Space Telescope and the construction International Space Station itself. It’s nothing sort of amazing that 16 nations were able to cooperate over two decades in the construction and operations of the station; the experience gained will serve NASA and other national space agencies will when we take the next steps out beyond Earth orbit.

As for the future, just Google ‘the new space race‘ and you’ll get a whole lot of information about the companies lining up to open the new frontier to the rest of us. I’m pretty sure it won’t be too long before we see humans launched from LC-39A or some other facility in Kennedy Space Center.

In fact, last week, tucked away in a corner of Cape Canaveral where the tourists don’t go, the Air Force Space and Missile Museum was hosting the newest space celebrity, the Dragon Capsule sent into orbit and back last year by SpaceX.

It was no accident that on launch day, the press area was filled with representatives of the major players in the New Space arena, all in nice air conditioned tents (thankfully giving out bottled water along with squishies and other schwag). Space, at least access to the ISS and Earth orbit, is now the domain of the private sector, freeing up NASA to focus on the next steps – at least that’s the idea.

The future may look grim for American involvement in human space flight but that’s only if you believe that space flight begins and ends with NASA. It doesn’t and I’m counting on returning to Kennedy Space Center in a few years to witness more launches bring more people into space.

Someone’s got to bring back that flag.