Astronauts Brace For Emotional Shuttle Landing

Nostalgic, bittersweet feelings and jitters about the future of the American space program were to see Wednesday and his team prepared to go aboard the Atlantis shuttle mission to the home recently.

Countdown clocks are ticking at dawn Thursday, before landing in Florida, where the world's eyes are a witness to the history of America's most successful space program ends after 30 years.

A crew of four have prepared for re-entry of a final shuttle mission to the International Space Station, but said that U.S. astronauts to the extent of what is going to live when they floated away from the ISS on Tuesday.

It may seem like an ending, and I think that the degree is. Space Shuttle is with us heart and soul of the manned space program in about 30 years, and it's a bit sad to see it go away Commander Chris Ferguson told the crew posed series of television interviews Wednesday.

"It's going to be hard," he said, when he and pilot Doug Hurley to stop the wheels of Atlantis after landing at Kennedy Space Center scheduled for 5:56 (0956 GMT).

"This is going to be an emotional moment for many people who have dedicated their lives to the shuttle program for 30 years. But we'll try to keep it upbeat We will try to make it a great celebration of the crowning achievements as has taken place.

Since the age of the shuttle - which has made the American astronauts in space longer than any other ship - to a close after 37 dramatic rendezvous space station, switched teams for grabs and kisses on Monday before closing the hatches separating them with a final time.

United States, millions of Americans see no other form of human space transportation alive.

Mission Specialist Rex Walheim said he was optimistic about the future the U.S. space program, but admitted that we have a sort of transitional period which is a bit difficult.

NASA's goal is to make low-orbit space station and space for servicing commercial ventures with a commercial launcher, and a private company in collaboration with NASA capsule built ready to fly again after 2015.

It will free up NASA to make hard and beyond low Earth orbit flights Walheim what is described as "difficult destinations such as asteroids or Mars.

This is going to be tough, but we will get there, go longer and longer and we will get to new places pretty quickly, he said.

Until the private sector plays an insignificant, chairs the world on Russian Soyuz rockets astronauts to the ISS for the trips.

Within the program, five NASA space shuttles - Atlantis, Challenger, Columbia, Discovery and Endeavour - is designed for the fleet of the world's first reusable spacecraft.

In addition, the prototype of the Enterprise never flew in space, only three survived after Challenger and Columbia was destroyed in the accident that killed their crews.
At a time when the U.S. fiscal discipline President Barack Obama has decided to exit the program, which is an average of about $ 450 million to 500 million for each of its 135 missions. He canceled the Constellation project, which aims to put U.S. astronauts back to the moon in 2020 of $ 97 billion.

Hurley paid tribute to the thousands of men and women who worked on commission for several decades.

"We look forward to bringing home tomorrow," he said.

Mission Specialist Sandy Magnus said that he was not sure if he would never return to the room and so I tried to "enjoy every moment" of Atlantis a last look out the window at our beautiful earth and try and write them out in memory my.

NASA was expected to land in ideal weather conditions. Empire State Building in New York announced it is red, white and blue of the night to make historic return astronauts to the lighthouse.

Commander Ferguson urged Americans to turn home the final landing page.
"Take a good look and make a memory, he said because you have never seen anything like it again.