NASA’s 30-year space shuttle program came to an end Thursday morning when Atlantis touched down in Florida at 5:56 A.M. Eastern time.  The landing marked the end of the 135th and final mission in the shuttle program. 

Altogether, the shuttle program flew 542 million miles, orbited the Earth 21,152 times and carried 355 people from 16 countries into space.

Shuttle Launch Director Mike Leinbach said it was a bittersweet moment because the happiness of bringing the shuttle crew home safely was tinged with the sadness that the program is over and people will be leaving.  Leinbach said human emotions were in full view on the runway Thursday, with both grown men and women crying.

Reflecting on the end of the shuttle program, Kennedy Space Center Director Bob Cabana said NASA has to move on to future programs.  Cabana admitted that in these austere budget times, NASA simply could not afford to continue to fly the shuttle while developing other space initiatives.

Thousands of people who have worked on shuttle missions over the years were at the Kennedy Space Center to welcome Atlantis home.  Many of those are now losing their jobs, with the first round of shuttle layoffs set to begin today.

NASA still has not said when the next U.S astronauts will be launched from the Kennedy Space Center on an American rocket.  Any American astronauts who are scheduled to go to the international space station will have to hitch a ride on Russian Soyuz capsules for at least the next five years.

Because of the high cost of manned shuttle missions, NASA has decided to get out of the business of using it to deliver cargo to the space station and instead outsource the deliveries to private firms who will manage unmanned missions.

As for the future of U.S. manned flight, President Obama has declared a goal of 2025 for sending a man to an asteroid and a target of the mid-2030s for a manned mission to Mars.