Atlantis Mission Complete: Big Thinkers Weigh in on the End of the Space Shuttle Era

After touching down early Thursday morning, the Atlantis shuttle is now officially a museum piece. It will be retired at the Kennedy Space Center Museum in Cape Canaveral, Florida. “Job well done, America,” was Houston’s final sign-off. Job well done to the final four astronauts of NASA’s space shuttle program. We wish you well, because this question remains: who’s job will space exploration be in the future? Three Big Thinkers weigh in on three key questions:

Here is what they told us:

1. The beginning of a new space race driven by the private sector is a brave new world, says Mark Uhran, Manager of the Space Station National Laboratory. Watch here:

2. There are three main reasons we need to go into space now, and one of them is to back up the biosphere, says X Prize Foundation Chairman & CEO Peter Diamandis. Watch here:

3. If it comes to the point where we’ll have to abandon this planet, we’ll still have to figure out how to all get along in space. Astronaut Leroy Chiao shares his experiences in space in this video here: