The Space Shuttle Discovery, one of the three operational NASA orbiters, is scheduled to lift off Cape Kennedy for the last time Nov. 30 as it delivers components to the International Space Station. (It was scheduled to fly last week, but was postponed due to technical and weather issues.) The Endeavour's last flight is scheduled for February, and the third orbiter, the Atlantis, may make one last flight in the summer. Then the Space Shuttle program will be grounded. The silver lining on the fleet is that one may land here permanently at the Museum of Flight in Seattle.

"We'll be moving some of the Space Shuttle hardware as it goes off to museums. Specifically, it is my understanding that the Museum of Flight has opted for a Crew Compartment Trainer, or CCP," said Captain Gregory C. Johnson, a West Seattle High School graduate and retired astronaut. He piloted the Atlantis Space Shuttle May, 2009, on a successful mission to repair the Hubble Space Telescope. You may have met our local high-flying hero when he helped dedicate the Alki Time Capsule here at Liberty Plaza Sept. 9, 2009.

There is a push by Dr. Bonnie Dunbar, former CEO and President, Seattle Museum of Flight, also a former astronaut with five space flights under her rocket belt, to have a retired Space Shuttle at the museum. She is now President, Wings Over Washington, a museum affiliate focused on educational initiatives and also bringing a Shuttle to the museum.

"I would support the Northwest getting a vehicle," said Johnson. "My strongest feeling is that not all the orbiters should reside on the East Coast. Spread them around the country. I think the Museum of Flight is a good stop. But it's a very high level decision made at our headquarters and I'll certainly stand by whatever our administrator decides.

"I think the Museum of Flight is a wonderful museum," Johnson continued. "It gets a tremendous group of people through it every year.

"When I was a research pilot I'm pretty sure I flew with Bonnie in the T-38 before I was an astronaut." The T-38 is a supersonic jet trainer. "Bonnie has done a wonderful job getting some of the first production Boeing airplanes there. She is positioning herself trying to get a Space Shuttle and I certainly support her efforts."

So what is Captain Johnson flying these days?

"I'm busier than I've ever been," he said. "I work out of flight operations at Ellington Field, in Texas." That's near Houston, by the NASA Johnson Space Center. "I fly multiple airplanes, test airplanes, research airplanes. I started out at NASA in that position and now I'm back at that position. I fly the Super Guppy, a Boeing (cargo) airplane modified to move large parts."

The direction NASA will take is, well, up in the air, and the reality of taking one giant leap on a Russian craft to land on the International Space Station is unsettling to some Americans.

"A couple of American astronauts will fly to the International Space Station two or three times a year. They will get there on a Russian Soyez Rocket. It's reasonably economical," Johnson said of the Soyez. "It's got a very good safety record. It's not American made of course, and is not launching off American soil. We'd like to have our own ability to get up to the International Space Station but some hard decisions were made a while back to try to end the Shuttle and then start a new program.

"There's a fairly large (time) gap between our ability with the Shuttle and some other method with getting up to the International Space Station," he said. "Whenever you have a big change in direction, which I think we have, it remains to be seen how the American public will respond. It's a little early to say. The things that excite kids the most is the people in space, and we will have less of that with just the four or six astronauts on the (Soyuz) flights each year."

Still, Johnson believes things will soon be looking up again for NASA, and mentioned with enthusiasm the newly-photographed comet you can view at www.nasa.gov.

"I think there will always be exciting things at NASA," he said. "Just today NASA flew by a comet traveling 27,000 miles an hour. Hubble has discovered just a billion light years short of the Big Bang. There's lots of great science going on."

That's in large part thanks to Captain Johnson and his crew's handiwork repairing and upgrading the Hubble on their mission.

"We didn't wreck the Hubble so that's a good thing," he said humbly. "It was great to pull off the mission and we were completely successful."

To help the Seattle Museum of Flight get a Space Shuttle, go to: www.museumofflight.org
and click on "Space Shuttle Campaign."