The last Shuttle flight of Atlantis was a bitter-sweet event; sad that it was truly the end of a Golden era of manned spaceflight, but happy too in so far as the design limitations of the launch system meant that the risks had been greater than was comfortable. The loss of the two crews and orbiters might well have been avoidable, being due more to “management failures” than technical deficiencies.

The three remaining orbiters will now become iconic reminders, together with the Saturn V vehicles of the first great age of spaceflight – quite when the momentum will ever be recovered remains to be seen.