A very cool picture indeed Pinback. It's a shame that this will be Atlantis last mission. I wonder how far NASA have progressed with it's replacement for the shuttle. Bet this worldwide recession will slow things up for a while.

I though I read some where that they had dropped the shuttle replacement in favour of rockets, one for the cargo and one for the crew?.

Yes I read that too Pinback, but I meant a reusable replacement like the canned X33 or X34. I think its a bit unfair that the USA should bare the full cost of development, testing and production of a replacement. It's high time we started a fully international space program, not just piecemeal as it is now, but a much closer sharing of technology and production techniques to produce the very first "Earth" spacecraft. The ISS is a good start and that should continue with spacecraft too in my view. However with this recession hitting everywhere, I guess there is little chance of that happening now.