15 years ago, the space shuttle returned for the last time - and no one really took over

On July 21, 2011, Atlantis landed at KSC and marked the end of 30 years of Space Shuttle. Fifteen years later, The Register asks: have the commercial replacements really kept their promises?

The shared memory

There is an image that one does not forget when seen live: the Atlantis shuttle setting its landing gear on the runway of the Kennedy Space Center, on a humid night in Florida, on July 21, 2011. It was mission STS-135. It was the last one. And the silence, at NASA and in the TV studios that broadcasted, said better than any speech that an era had just shifted.

The Register reminds us on this July 26, 2026 - almost fifteen years to the day - that this moment deserves more than a postcard. Under the acidic subtitle ("So, how are those commercial replacements working out for you, NASA?"), the British media asks the real question: has the post-Shuttle promise been kept?

An impossible machine

We have, in the editorial staff, a generation for whom the shuttle was the image of space conquest. Born from a program launched in 1972, first orbital flight on April 12, 1981 (STS-1, Columbia, John Young and Robert Crippen), the Space Shuttle never lived up to its original promises - quick turnaround between flights, reasonable launch cost, proven safety. 135 missions in 30 years, two major disasters (Challenger in 1986, Columbia in 2003), fourteen astronauts lost. A record that no contemporary space program has dared to assume so bluntly.

And yet: it built Hubble, it served and repaired the telescope five times (including the rescue mission STS-61 in December 1993, which restored Hubble to its full optical potential), it assembled most of the International Space Station, and it totaled on its 135 flights approximately 852 person-flights - which actually corresponds to about 355 unique astronauts (several having flown three, four, or even seven times for the veterans of the program). No space vehicle replicates that versatility.

What the "replacements" have delivered

The point that The Register hammers home is harsh but deserved. Since 2011, NASA has awarded Commercial Crew and Commercial Resupply contracts to private actors (SpaceX, Boeing, Sierra Space). What is the balance?

• SpaceX Dragon 2 / Crew Dragon - clear success. First crewed flight Demo-2 on May 30, 2020 (Bob Behnken, Doug Hurley). Since then, regular cadence to the ISS. Today, it is the backbone of American astronaut transport.
• Boeing Starliner (CST-100) - industrial disaster. First crewed flight Crew Flight Test on June 5, 2024: propulsion problems during docking, shortened mission, astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams forced to return with SpaceX in 2025. The program has accumulated delays for more than a decade.
• Sierra Space Dream Chaser - a promising mini-cargo Shuttle, in testing, whose first operational mission has been repeatedly postponed.
• SLS + Orion (NASA's "historic" program) - a first uncrewed flight Artemis I in November 2022, and a human return around the Moon repeatedly postponed on the calendar.

In other words: SpaceX has delivered. The rest, as The Register's title says, "how are you doing?" We do not have a terrestrial return for a vehicle as versatile as the Shuttle. NASA has gained contractual flexibility, it has lost a space laboratory machine capable of bringing back 20 tons of scientific cargo in the hold - something that no operational vehicle today does.

The moments that remain

We remember, among others:

• STS-51-L (Challenger), January 28, 1986 - 73 seconds of flight, left booster O-ring, seven lives lost including teacher Christa McAuliffe. The engineering lesson on cold, O-rings, and organizational culture has been taught in all engineering schools since.
• STS-107 (Columbia), February 1, 2003 - disintegration on re-entry, a piece of foam detached at launch sixteen days earlier had perforated the leading edge of the left wing. Seven more lives.
• STS-125, May 11, 2009 - last Hubble service mission, a bold ambition assumed even as the program was coming to an end.
• STS-135, July 21, 2011 - Chris Ferguson, Doug Hurley, Sandy Magnus, Rex Walheim. Atlantis, one last time.

For those who grew up with

In the editorial staff, those who saw Atlantis land that night never forgot that a country had then given up a vehicle without really having a plan for the future. Fifteen years later, SpaceX fills part of the gap, but the gap is not filled. China is now assembling its own station Tiangong. Japan is preparing its cargo HTV-X. Europe is still looking for its post-Ariane 5 autonomy.

The Register's article is short but salutary: space anniversaries, do not treat them as postcards - treat them as reports. And on this report, fifteen years later, the question of the title is still open.