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Space science: Along for the ride

Nature volume 473, pages 21–23 (2011)Cite this article

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Reusable commercial rockets will soon be able to take scientists — and tourists — on suborbital spaceflights. Are these vehicles vital research tools, or an expensive dead end?

As NASA's space shuttle Discovery roared into the sky on 24 February 2011, the bass rumble of its main engines and the staccato crackle of its solid-rocket boosters rolled out across the central Florida countryside, growing fainter and fainter with distance. Viewed from a hotel patio some 65 kilometres away in Orlando, the pillar of flame seemed to rise soundlessly, a silent apparition from a bygone era. Discovery was on its final mission; only two shuttle flights were left before the programme ended for good. In the United States, the classical era of the nation's human spaceflight was drawing to a close, 50 years after it began with the 15-minute flight of astronaut Alan Shepard on 5 May 1961.

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  1. Lee Billings
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Lee Billings is a freelance writer in New York.

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Next-Generation Suborbital Researchers Conference

Commercial Spaceflight Federation

NASA Flight Opportunities programme

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Billings, L. Space science: Along for the ride. Nature 473, 21–23 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1038/473021a

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