He is also a former two-time space shuttle astronaut, having flown in 2008 and 2009.

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The space station crew has been limited to two full-time residents since last year's suspension of space shuttle flights in the wake of the Columbia accident.

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Space shuttle Atlantis landed for the last time at Kennedy Space Center at 5:57 a.m. this morning.

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And the percentage of all Americans, men and women, in work, is lower than it has been at any time since the early 1980s, when that first space shuttle was launched.

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Obama should make it clear that the space shuttle is ending, but at the same time Elon Musk, a South African immigrant, is launching Space X.

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Behnken has inherited the position at a time of transition for the astronaut corps, as NASA looks beyond its retired space shuttle program toward hiring U.S. companies to fly its crews on private spacecraft to the International Space Station (ISS).

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