Despite being an enormously over-expensive project, the Space Shuttle was a marvel of engineering, and a pioneering effort in exploration.
The final flight of the fleet took place these last couple days – and it deserves a big salute. Despite the accidents, the budget overruns, and the noise around it, it was a beautiful machine.
What is even more sad is that we don’t have a project in place to replace it, to put humans back in space.