The US Space Shuttle program was one of the big reasons I was interested in astronomy and as kid and probably the main reason I’m as big of a Carl Sagan fan as a I am. Yesterday, as I’m sure you’ve heard, the Space Shuttle Program came to an end when Atlantis landed at the Kennedy Space Center. The US now plans to leave flight to low Earth orbit (where the space station is) to private industry while it makes plans for manned space flights back to the moon, asteroids and possibly Mars.

Here’s a great video from Nature with clips from all 135 Space Shuttle missions (via Brainpickings):