Friday marked the space shuttle’s swan song, as the Atlantis lifted off from the Kennedy Space Center for the program’s 135th and final flight. It was President George W. Bush who announced the shuttle’s retirement with his 2004 “Vision for Space Exploration,” which included a moon base and “human missions to Mars and to worlds beyond.” But it was President Obama who put the kibosh on that vision, canceling the moon project and leaving “worlds beyond” in doubt.

“We are retiring the shuttle in favor of nothing,” Michael Griffin, Bush’s NASA administrator, wailed to the Washington Post recently.

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