NASA focusing beyond space shuttle era

Although the NASA space shuttle Atlantis is set to close out the space shuttle era in July with the STS‐135 mission, this final shuttle mission will not mark the end of America's leadership in human spaceflight, NASA administrator Charles Bolden said in a 1 July speech at the National Press Club in Washington, D. C. “When I hear people say, or listen to media reports [that indicate], that the final shuttle flight marks the end of U.S. human spaceflight, I have to say, ‘these folks must be living on another planet.’ We are not ending human spaceflight; we are recommitting ourselves to it and taking the necessary and difficult steps today to ensure America's preeminence in human space exploration for years to come.”