Our future in space: NASA’s troubles and SpaceX

With the swan song of NASA’s Space Shuttle program sung with the flight of STS-135 (Atlantis) in July of last year, financial prospects for NASA look grim. With an economy in dire straits and little to spare, the retirement of the Space Shuttle has led to a stagnation of space flight options for the agency that sent a man to the moon in the depths of the Cold War.