The historic end of the space shuttle program is coming up. The shuttles have been part of an inspiring space program that aimed to win an international "space race" against all comers. Now, though, the space race is turning into a commercial enterprise -- so the demand for ostentatious space vehicles isn't as high as it used to be. The upside is that there may actually be more opportunities for "regular people" (ok, millionaires mostly) to get a chance to go into space. Here are a few links about Discovery and its future plans.

• Discovery's final mission was extended a bit, giving it a total time of 365 days in space. During that non-continuous year in space, Discovery traveled about 148 million miles -- more than the distance between the Earth and the Sun (but done in a relatively tight circle). [url]
• The final resting place for Discovery will be announced on April 12th -- the 30th anniversary of the first shuttle flight. There are over 20 museums that have applied to get one of the last three shuttles after they've been decommissioned. [url]
• The manager of the space station national laboratory makes an analogy that the end of the shuttle program for ISS means that they'll be using "pickup trucks" instead of an 18-wheeler to send equipment to the ISS. Ford or Chevy? [url]
• A pretty big pickup truck, aka an unmanned Delta 4-Heavy rocket, launched from California in January, setting a record for the largest rocket to blast off from the West Coast. It took off from a launch pad that was originally designed for the space shuttles, but no shuttles ever launched from California. [url]
• To discover more links on space exploration, check out what's floating around in StumbleUpon universe. [url]  

By the way, StumbleUpon can also recommend some good Techdirt articles, too.