As the STS-115 shuttle mission winds down, the crew of the shuttle Atlantis and their counterparts on the International Space Station (ISS) have a lot to be proud of. After several long and strenuous spacewalks, the visitors from Earth will leave the ISS with much more power and capability than it had a week ago. Congratulations to all.
COMMENT: The ISS was expensive, and sometimes poorly managed: it will never produce the level of science return originally hoped for. That said, it gives us experience in two areas that will be very important in the future. One is long-duration human spaceflight. The other is the construction of large assemblies in space, something impossible to replicate precisely on Earth. Both will be critical to our aspirations to go beyond this planet - first with machines, as we do today, but someday with human explorers.
The urge to explore has propelled evolution since the first water creatures reconnoitered the land. Like all living systems, cultures cannot remain static; they evolve or decline. They explore or expire. - Buzz Aldrin
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