CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. – America’s longest space-flying streak ends this week with the smallest crew in decades – three men and a woman who were in high school and college when the first space shuttle soared 30 years ago.
History will remember these final four as bookending an era that began with two pilots who boldly took a shuttle for a two-day spin in 1981 without even a test flight. That adventure blasted space wide open for women, minorities, scientists, schoolteachers, politicians, even a prince.
On Friday aboard Atlantis, this last crew will make NASA’s 135th and final shuttle flight. It will be years before the United States sends its own spacecraft up again.
Commander Christopher Ferguson, co-pilot Douglas Hurley, Rex Walheim and Sandra Magnus are delighting in their good luck.
“We’re very honored to be in this position. There are many people who could be here,” said Ferguson, a retired Navy captain. “When the dice fell, our names were facing up.”