Mark Wilson / Getty Images

Retired senator-astronaut John Glenn is surrounded by other space veterans in front of the space shuttle Discovery during its handover to the Smithsonian at the Udvar-Hazy Center in Chantilly, Va., on Thursday. Glenn says the shuttles were "prematurely grounded" but accepts the shuttle program's end.

For some veteran astronauts, today’s transformation of the shuttle Discovery into a museum exhibit is a cause for celebration. For others, it’s a reminder of their regrets. But for John Grunsfeld, the one-time “Hubble Hugger” who is now NASA’s science chief, the dominant feeling is a sense of relief.

Discovery's handover to the Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum has re-ignited questions about the end of the 30-year space shuttle program. Why did they have to be retired? The short answer is that in the wake of the 2003 Columbia tragedy, policymakers decided that once the job of building the International Space Station was finished, it would just be too risky and expensive to keep the shuttles flying.

Instead, President George W. Bush decided to re-target the space program on destinations beyond Earth orbit. For Bush, the first focus was going to be the moon. President Barack Obama shifted that initial focus to near-Earth asteroids, but the endpoint is the same: eventually getting to Mars. And the shuttles could never do that. They weren't built to go beyond Earth orbit.

Nevertheless, some of America's best-known astronauts think the shuttles should have been kept around a while longer — particularly because NASA will be dependent on the Russians for rides to the space station for the next three to five years.

'Unfortunate decision'
"The unfortunate decision eight and a half years ago to terminate the shuttle program, in my opinion, prematurely grounded Discovery and delayed our research," retired senator-astronaut John Glenn said during today's handover ceremony at the museum's Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center in Virginia.

Another retired astronaut who rode on Discovery, Tom Jones, voiced similar frustration during an interview conducted before today's ceremony. "I'm reliving the disappointment that the shuttles are retiring without a rapid successor," he told me.

Jones wishes that the White House and Congress had revved up NASA's plan for new spaceships capable of going to the space station and beyond: the Constellation Program, which initially aimed to put U.S. astronauts back on the moon by 2020. Instead, Constellation was so cash-starved and technically challenged that the Obama White House scrubbed the program and reworked elements of it into the current plan to visit an asteroid by 2025.

"We dropped the ball on this," Jones said. "If we just went from 0.5 percent of the federal budget to 0.6 percent, this would all be a non-issue."

The benefit of retaining an American system for resupplying the space station is what motivated Glenn's call to keep the shuttles flying. Glenn made his pitch to the White House in 2010 — but Obama didn't go for it, and the former Democratic senator told me today that he accepts the verdict.

"No need crying over what happened in the past," Glenn said. "Let's get on with the future."

The 'Hubble Hugger' and his pin
Grunsfeld thinks the White House made the right call, at least on the question of grounding the shuttles. He's best-known for his role as a spacewalker on Hubble servicing missions in 1999, 2002 and 2009. During that last mission, Grunsfeld was the one who bade the Hubble Space Telescope goodbye forever. Now he's NASA's associate administrator for science. The way Grunsfeld sees it, keeping the shuttles flying might have led to another disaster like the 1986 Challenger explosion — or the loss of Columbia and its seven STS-107 crew members in 2003.

"There's a possibility we could have flown them for a little bit longer, or extended them at some cost," Grunsfeld told me. "I'm actually extremely thankful that we are rolling Discovery into the Air and Space Museum, and not burying its parts. We flew out the space shuttle program gracefully. We didn't lose another one. It would have been tragic. The fact is that the space shuttle program was ended with dignity — it was an amazing accomplishment, and I'm just thankful for that."

Then he shared what he called a "small, personal story."

"Just this morning, on my flight suit for the first time since the loss of Columbia, I took my STS-107 pin off. I felt like this was an apt celebration, that we flew out the program safely after Columbia, and that affected me very deeply," Grunsfeld said. "Now that we are where we are, I'm looking forward to getting the next space vehicle going."

The end ... and the beginning
Retired astronaut Eileen Collins, who became NASA's first woman shuttle pilot during a 1995 mission on Discovery and went on to command shuttle missions in 1999 and 2005, has some firsthand knowledge about the risks associated with flying the shuttles.

The 2005 mission on Discovery marked NASA's "return to flight" after the Columbia tragedy. She and most other people at NASA had thought they had solved the foam-loss problem that led to the Columbia's doom — but mission managers were shocked to see that the fuel tank shed a substantial piece of foam insulation during Discovery's ascent. No significant harm was done, but it took another year for NASA engineers to rework the problem to their satisfaction.

This week, retired NASA shuttle manager Wayne Hale recounted the episode in a blog item headlined "How We Nearly Lost Discovery."

Today, Collins noted that each shuttles was originally designed to fly for 100 missions or 10 years, whichever came first. Discovery, the most traveled of the shuttles, flew 39 missions ... over the course of 28 years. She recalled that she agreed with the shuttle retirement plan that was announced in 2004, but was disappointed when the Constellation Program was canceled in 2010.

"At that time, I would say yes, we should keep the shuttles flying — with one major exception. Back in 2006, we at NASA made major decisions to start shutting down the pipeline for parts. In 2010, to reverse the decision and continue flying the shuttles was going to be very expensive and take a very long time. So it wasn't realistic to fly them again," she told me.

"The worst thing we can do to our people is to constantly change things ... so in the end, the right thing to do was to fly out shuttle. I am personally very sad to see it go. But the big problem is, we don't have anything to follow on right now. We're going to get there. It's just that right now, we don't have it."

It's not the end of the shuttle program that bothers Collins. Rather, it's the possibility that NASA won't be able to follow through on the beginning of the next program.

"I don't want to see any more canceled programs," she told a school group after today's ceremony. "If we have problems, we need to fix those problems and press on. We can't just cancel and walk away from them. I go to schools, and I talk to kids, and I say, 'If you have problems, stick with it, fix it, don't give up.' We don't want to continue to give up on programs that are going to be taking us out into space, whether it's with robots or with people. We need to keep working on those programs."

What do you think? Here's your chance to weigh in on the end of the shuttle program and the beginning of the next chapter in exploration. Just leave a comment below.

More about what's next for NASA:

• NASA gives all-clear for commercial launch to space station
• NASA's chief says end of shuttle era could usher in new age
• NASA unveils giant rocket design for future space odysseys
• NASA retools spaceship design for missions beyond Earth orbit
• Next steps in a commercial space race

Alan Boyle is msnbc.com's science editor. Connect with the Cosmic Log community by "liking" the log's Facebook page, following @b0yle on Twitter or adding Cosmic Log's Google+ page to your circle. You can also check out "The Case for Pluto," my book about the controversial dwarf planet and the search for other worlds.

CollectSpace

The shuttle Enterprise, which was an aerodynamic test vehicle that never flew in space, gets a once-over at its display at the Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum Udvar-Hazy Center, near Dulles International Airport in Virginia. Discovery is expected to take Enterprise's place after the retirement of the space shuttle fleet.

Last updated 12:12 p.m. ET March 9:

So what happens now that the shuttle Discovery has made its last landing? The most-flown spaceship in NASA's fleet will almost certainly end up on display at the Smithsonian — but not before it goes through a months-long round of technological taxidermy.

The first steps toward Discovery's destiny aren't all that unusual: NASA will put the orbiter through its routine post-flight maintenance, as if it were going back into space. But instead of prepping the space plane for its next mission, mechanics will give Discovery a major overhaul, turning the world's most complex flying machine into an unflyable museum artifact.

NASA has already figured out how to pull out all the stuff on Discovery that could pose a health hazard, ranging from fuel tanks and plumbing to thermal blankets that have soaked up toxic fumes for the past 26 years. The shuttle's main engines will be replaced with mockups built out of replicas and spare parts. The crew cabin will be spiffed up to look as if it's ready for flight, but in hidden areas, structural shells and skins will take the place of flight hardware.

When museumgoers get their first up-close peek at Discovery next year, they may have no idea that the space shuttle has been stripped down and rebuilt. "To the viewer, it will look as if the shuttle is intact," Robert Z. Pearlman, editor of CollectSpace website and a walking encyclopedia on the shuttle program, told me. "And for future generations of researchers, the process of removing all these materials has been very well documented."

Discovery's destiny is due to be announced officially on April 12, the 30th anniversary of the shuttle fleet's first spaceflight. Officially, Discovery's fate is a closely held secret. But the widespread assumption is that after putting nearly 150 million miles on its odometer, the senior space shuttle will go to the Udvar-Hazy Center, an annex of the Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum that's right next to Dulles International Airport in Virginia.

Museum spokesman Brian Mullen insists that the Smithsonian is still "in the dark" about where Discovery will end up. "It's really up to NASA," he told me. For months, officials at the museum have been offering a statement so well-worn that it sounded as if Mullen had it memorized: "The museum is involved in discussions about transfer of the orbiter and other artifacts from the shuttle program. The final disposition of shuttle artifacts will be the decision of NASA."

But if NASA doesn't award Discovery to the Smithsonian on April 12, that would be a real shocker.

Sought-after shuttle
Discovery is the shuttle most sought after because it's the most flown and the oldest of the three orbiters remaining in the fleet (Columbia and Challenger, lost in 2003 and 1986, were older) — and also because it was involved in some of NASA's best-known missions, including the 1990 deployment of the Hubble Space Telescope and both of the "return to flight" missions in 1988 and 2005.

NASA offered it to the Smithsonian two years ago, but for a while it looked as if the Smithsonian would have to pass up the opportunity, due to the costs associated with getting a "free" space shuttle. NASA initially said any museum that was awarded a shuttle would have to come up with $42 million to reimburse the space agency for preparation and transport costs. That price tag was knocked down to $28.8 million, but the Smithsonian still reportedly balked. Congress finally stepped in with a legal provision last December saying that the Smithsonian would get a shuttle "at no or nominal cost" if NASA Administrator Charles Bolden thought it was an appropriate venue for display.

If Bolden gives his go-ahead on April 12 as expected, Discovery would take the place of the shuttle Enterprise, a craft that flew several aerodynamic tests in the '70s but never went into space. The Enterprise has been on display at the Udvar-Hazy Center since 2004. Giving Discovery to the Smithsonian means that Enterprise would be up for grabs, along with Endeavour and Atlantis, two other space shuttles that have yet to take their final turn in outer space.

"The Enterprise is an artifact under the Smithsonian's care," Mullen noted. "If we were lucky enough to get a flown orbiter, I'm sure NASA has a plan."

End of the shuttle scramble?
The disposition of Endeavour, Atlantis and presumably Enterprise is one of the hottest contests in the museum world. In all, 29 would-be exhibitors are vying to acquire a space shuttle, even though they'd have to pay the $28.8 million as well as the expense of providing a suitable exhibit space and getting the decommissioned orbiters spruced up for display. NASA wants to make sure the shuttles are better preserved than some high-profile space artifacts from the Apollo era. The prime example was a Saturn 5 rocket that was slowly rotting away at Johnson Space Center. Fortunately for space history buffs, the rocket was restored several years ago and moved to an enclosed, climate-controlled shelter, at a cost of $5 million.

Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex

An artist's concept shows a space shuttle on display at the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex in Florida.

The most mentioned players in the shuttle scramble include:

• Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex, which has drawn up plans for a $100 million, 64,000-square-foot exhibit where the shuttle would be displayed as if it were in flight, with its robotic arm extended to support an astronaut.
• Space Center Houston, which has proposed the construction of a 53,000-square-foot hangar at the visitor center for Johnson Space Center in Texas.
• The National Museum of the U.S. Air Force in Dayton, Ohio, which is planning to add a 200,000-square-foot exhibit hall to its grounds. The Dayton museum is particularly interested in Atlantis because of that shuttle's past role in Air Force space missions.
• Seattle's Museum of Flight, which has started work on a $12 million, 15,500-square-foot "Human Space Flight Gallery" that would be available to showcase a shuttle.
• The Intrepid Sea, Air and Space Museum, a dockside facility in Manhattan that has been built alongside the aircraft carrier Intrepid.

It's not yet exactly clear yet how much time would pass between a shuttle's last flight and its handover to one of the museums, but Pearlman said NASA would like to have the shuttles in a position to go to their future homes as little as six months after their final flights. Realistically, the job may take longer than that. "It looks like it will take at least a year for preparations," Mullen told me.

NASA spokesman Michael Curie recently said in an e-mail that the space agency was looking into scenarios that would require the space agency to hang onto a shuttle for longer than expected after retirement. "As a what-if budget exercise, we are looking at what it would cost if a recipient was not ready to take an orbiter right away, and if we wanted to keep an orbiter in long-term storage for potential engineering analysis," he wrote.

United Space Alliance, the contractor that manages most aspects of the shuttle program on NASA's behalf, has proposed using Endeavour and Atlantis in a commercial operation to resupply the International Space Station. That would short-circuit NASA's plan for sending those two shuttles to the museums anytime soon. However, the USA proposal doesn't seem to have a high chance of gaining NASA's support, particularly in view of the Bolden's plan for an April 12 announcement on the shuttles' fate.

The final, final journey
When NASA has finished decommissioning a shuttle, it would be loaded atop the modified Boeing 747 jet that serves as NASA's carrier airplane and flown to the airport that's nearest to the orbiter's destination, Pearlman said. Cranes would be used to lift the shuttle off the plane, and then the exhibitor would take it from there.

If the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex gets one of the shuttles, the job won't require a plane trip, Pearlman noted. And if the Smithsonian gets Discovery as expected, the shuttle would be hoisted off the carrier plane and rolled along Dulles' runway to the Udvar-Hazy Center. The same plane could conceivably give the Enterprise a piggyback flight from Dulles to its new destination.

"While all the other orbiters are seeing the end of their flight careers, Enterprise is getting a bit of a reprieve. It'll have one last carry on the top of a 747," Pearlman joked.

You might think that Pearlman, an enthusiast for space history and memorabilia, would be over the moon at the prospect of seeing Discovery up close in a museum. But that's not the case.

"I think everyone would love to see the orbiters continue flying," he said. "I'd much rather see Discovery go on and fly another 39 flights. I just don't think that at this point, with our national priorities ... well, I don't see that as a very likely possibility."

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Hey, kids! Check out some newly released videos that make you feel as if you're blasting off with a space shuttle — and then plan your own high-flying mission.

Your journey begins with a half-hour-long series of videos that NASA released today, showing last Thursday's launch of the shuttle Discovery as recorded by cameras mounted on the craft's two solid-rocket boosters. The boosters are jettisoned along with the shuttle's external fuel tank during the ascent to orbit, and while the fuel tank burns up in the atmosphere, the boosters fall back down through the atmosphere, splash down into the Atlantic and are recovered for reuse.

The cameras are installed on the boosters to give the mission team a look at any potential damage that the orbiter might sustain during ascent. It takes a few days to recover the imagery, but the wait is worth it. Give a click to the video above and check it out for yourself.

The opening seconds show the view looking at the pad as Discovery blasts off, and at around the 2:25 mark, the boosters make a fiery separation from the space plane.

This half-hour show strings together several views from different perspectives. At the 15-minute mark, there's a really interesting video from the intertank camera: A contact microphone is hooked up to the booster, so you hear the rush of the engines, the whoosh of the tank pulling away, and the plunks of debris hitting the metal. After separation, you can see Earth spinning around through the frame and even catch sight of the shuttle's vapor trail. It takes several minutes for the booster to finish its free-fall. The chutes open at the 19:21 mark, and then there's the splashdown at 19:51. Glub!

Seeing the launch from on high
Meanwhile, another video gives you a sense of the view from high up — as high as 110,000 feet. We've already talked quite a bit about the Robonaut-1 high-altitude balloon launch, organized by the Quest for Stars educational program and the Challenger Center for Space Science Education. During the Discovery countdown, the student-led project released a balloon that was festooned with all sorts of video and photo gear.

Smart phones captured pictures of Discovery as it was ascending, and on Wednesday, project organizers released a snazzy music video that takes in a 360-degree view of the scene. Look closely and you'll see Discovery's plume as it fades away (at 0:35, 0:54, 1:16 and so on):

We've also mentioned the two YouTube video views of Discovery's ascent as seen from commercial airplanes. A colleague of mine here at msnbc.com, Martin McClellan, has used a mashup website called YouTube Doubler to pair the two clips so you can watch them simultaneously.

Time for another liftoff
So are you ready to put your own payload up into the air? Over the past nine years, California-based JP Aerospace has flown more than 3,400 "PongSats" to high altitudes on balloons or suborbital sounding rockets. PongSats are experimental packages that are built small enough to fit inside a ping pong ball. They could be as simple as a plant seed, or as complicated as an electronic sensor. John Powell, the founder of JP Aerospace, told me that his venture flies PongSats for free, as add-ons for missions that are aimed at developing cheaper ways to get to space.

"JP Aerospace carries the PongSats to 100,000 feet on floating platforms, where they experience 90-below-zero temperatures, vacuum, cosmic rays and zero gravity during the 20-mile fall at the end. After the mission, the PongSats are sent back to the students for research, experimenting and science fairs," Powell wrote in an e-mail.

Here's a picture that was taken from one of the balloons, showing three PongSats nestled in their rack:

JP Aerospace

Three PongSats are secured to a high-altitude balloon sent skyward by JP Aerospace.

Powell said not everyone is pro-PongSat: "I've had NASA officials tell me PongSats are of no importance because they are round and too small. Big universities tell me PongSats aren't meaningful because they are free."

But the opportunities are very meaningful to the kids — and to Powell. "I know when we have a flight coming up, because hundreds of ping pong balls show up on my desk," he said.

Powell told me that it's not too late to get a pong-sized payload ready for the next mission in April:

"All anyone needs to do to sign up is to send an e-mail [to jpowell@jpaerospace.com] with their contact information. If it's a teacher or group, they need to say how many they want to do.  I send them back ID numbers to write on their PongSat. At least a week before the flight they need to mail their PongSats to us. After the flight we send them back their PongSat along with a certificate, a DVD with launch and onboard video, a picture sheet and a mission sheet describing how high, how cold and other mission details.

"You should do one!

"On our website there is a users guide with info about how to cut a ping pong ball in half. and suggestions on experiments. My favorite is to put a mini-marshmallow inside. If we climb fast, it puffs up, filling the ball and becoming freeze-dried. If we climb slow, it gets cold before it hits vacuum and shrinks, then freeze-dries. It make a great analog climb rate indicator.

"Some of the PongSats have been getting pretty complex. About one-third are electronic, and two-thirds are the simple plant seed type of experiments."

Flying for free? That's not a bad deal for kids who have an interest in out-of-this-world science. Powell told me he's gratified to hear that more scientists are becoming interested in suborbital space research. "I just hope the scientists can catch up to the 8-year-olds," he joked.

Join the Cosmic Log community by clicking the "like" button on our Facebook page or by following msnbc.com science editor Alan Boyle as b0yle on Twitter. To learn more about Alan Boyle's book on Pluto and the search for planets, check out the website for "The Case for Pluto." 

Watching a space shuttle launch from an airplane is a rare thrill, and having a video camera at the ready for the event is rarer still. So I was amazed to see last week's iPhone view of the shuttle Discovery's launch, captured by software developer Neil Monday from a commercial jet leaving Orlando. Turns out I shouldn't have been all that amazed: Canadian photographer JD Howell caught another view of last Thursday's launch with his own iPhone, from a different plane that happened to be passing through nearby airspace.

"I was returning to Toronto from a shoot in Cuba on an Air Canada flight, and awoke just as it was happening," Howell told me in an e-mail. "I started rolling my iPhone and caught two minutes of it before it exited the atmosphere. Talk about timing!"

The fact that this was Discovery's final launch made the experience all the more special for Howell. And as the mission continues, more photographers are turning their cameras skyward and praying for perfect timing.

Thierry Legault

The International Space Station looms above the shuttle Discovery in a series of images captured by French astrophotographer Thierry Legault. Click on the thumbnail to watch the video.

French astrophotographer Thierry Legault, who's become renowned for his pictures of the International Space Station and space shuttles silhouetted by the sun, snapped a sequence of images showing Discovery's approach to the station on Saturday. Click on the thumbnail at right to watch the whole thing.

"I had to travel as far as Weimar, Germany, to find a clear-enough sky to catch the ISS and Discovery 30 minutes before docking," Legault told SpaceWeather.com. "The station faces near the end of the video as the sun sets on the ISS."

If you want to double your pleasure, check out British photographer Rob Bullen's similarly framed picture of Discovery's approach, which is featured on NASA's website as well as on SpaceWeather.com. Bad Astronomy blogmeister Phil Plait says "it is seriously insane that we can do this." Or is that seriously awesome?

The insanity isn't over quite yet. On Thursday, NASA is due to release launch video captured by cameras mounted on the shuttle's solid-rocket boosters, and photographers will be clicking away again when Discovery undocks from the space station on March 6. Prepare to be wowed ... again.

More pictures with 'wow':

• Sun gets double-crossed
• Space missions in 3-D
• Shuttle in the spotlight
• Stare at the sun

Join the Cosmic Log community by clicking the "like" button on our Facebook page or by following msnbc.com science editor Alan Boyle as b0yle on Twitter. To learn more about Alan Boyle's book on Pluto and the search for planets, check out the website for "The Case for Pluto."

Seeing a space shuttle launch from the ground is impressive enough, but the view from above is just as thrilling. Take a look at some out-of-this-world pictures of the shuttle Discovery's final launch.

First, there's this YouTube video of Thursday's liftoff, which software developer Neil Monday shot with his iPhone through the window of a commercial airplane flying out of Florida's Orlando International Airport. A member of the flight crew can be heard on the intercom, telling passengers to look out "the right side of the aircraft" ... and later on, someone jokes, "we don't want to have anybody complain because we were late."

No one's complaining here.

Still more stunning views were captured from an even higher altitude, using an unmanned helium balloon that was festooned with smart phone cameras and other gizmos. The first images were released today, and they're stunning. 

"We are tickled pink. We don't think anyone has ever taken a picture of the shuttle this high," said Keith Cowing, a spokesman for Challenger Center for Space Science Education, which led the Robonaut-1 project with Quest for Stars.

Quest for Stars / Challenger Center

This is a frame grab from a video shot by a GoPro Hero Motorsport on a helium balloon launched to image the shuttle Discovery as it transited the stratosphere. The fogging is due to the fact that the balloon is coming through the troposphere when this picture was taken at 5:05 ET.

The Robonaut-1 balloon was launched from Florida so that it was in position for Discovery's supersonic transit of the stratosphere. The team hoped that the high-tech smart phones would send back real-time views of the launch, but that didn't pan out.

"We were relying on cell phone coverage, and you don't get a lot of that over swamps," Cowing explained. He said that similar experiments carried out in California, where coverage is better, have had better real-time results.

Payload payday
Expecting that the real-time imagery might not work, the experiment was set up with redundancy. The balloon was equipped with six Android smart phones as well as other high-tech cameras — an array of equipment that's worth several thousand dollars.

The payload was recovered in a field just west of Daytona Beach, Fla., near Cody's Corner on Route 11. The built-in redundancy paid off. "These guys are a real combination of storm chasers, barnstormers, and techno-geeks," Cowing said of the team behind Robonaut-1, an effort that was geared toward advancing science education.

Quest for Stars / Challenger Center

The trail of exhaust left behind by the shuttle Discovery begins to dissipate in the atmosphere, as seen in this view from the Robonaut-1 high-altitude balloon. The image was captured using a Motorola Droid X smart phone.

The team released the first of the photos retrieved from the equipment today, but Cowing said this was just the tip of the iceberg. The balloon was at an altitude somewhere between 70,000 and 100,000 feet "for the better part of an hour, which means we actually have captured the entire launch sequence and can actually see it heading into space," Cowing noted.

More images will be released in the coming days, and the cream of the crop will be released March 2 at the Next Generation Suborbital Researchers Conference in Orlando.

More launch views
Robonaut-1 proved that regular folks can join the space community with just a few cutting-edge smart phones — devices that are lightweight, have a high-quality camera, and the computing power of desktops — plus some clearance from the Federal Aviation Administration and a little ingenuity. Meanwhile, other enthusiasts were busy capturing images of Discovery's launch from the ground.

Peter Lardizabal

Peter Lardizabal of St. Johns, Fla., took this picture of Discovery's final ascent to space on Thursday from Apollo Beach, 18 miles north of the Kennedy Space Center launch pad.

Photographer Peter Lardizabal, for example, snapped pictures of Discovery's ascent and solid rocket booster separation from Apollo Beach in Canaveral National Seashore Park, about 18 miles north of the launch pad. More of his images are available from Spaceweather.com.

Lardizabal recommended Apollo Beach as a good venue for taking pictures. "It really gives you the best view of the separation. ... The only real problem is, it really, really fills up quick," he said. After Thursday's launch, he said, it took two hours to drive just three miles out of the park.

Shuttle-watchers started showing up a day in advance of Thurday's launch, and the park is likely to become even busier for the final two space shuttle launches, scheduled for April and June.

Lardizabal said another hot spot for shuttle-watching is Lighthouse Point Park, a Florida state park that's also north of the pad. "Viewing the launch from the north end is a special treat," due to the area's perspective on the shuttle's ascent route, he said. "You get to see the ascent of the vehicle from the side."

Are you thinking of taking in one of the last space shuttle launches in history? It's not too early to make your travel plans. The best guide to shuttle launch viewing is by photographer Ben Cooper. For additional advice, consult this NASA viewing guide, and keep an eye on this Web page for tickets from the Kennedy Space Center visitor complex. 

Submitted by Todd Swanson / UGC

Discovery in 2010 in pre-dawn launch. Photo by Todd Swanson/HisImageStudio

So ... are you nostalgic for Discovery yet? After this trip, the shuttle will be heading for a spot at the Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum, and you'll be able to get a close-up look at the world's most traveled spaceship. In the meantime, flip through our album of "Blasts from the Past," and take a look at this shot of Discovery's launch in April 2010, as captured by Todd Swanson of His Image Studio in Charlotte, N.C. Thanks for sharing, Todd!

Update for 10:30 p.m. ET: Neil Monday, the airline passenger who shot the shuttle video on YouTube, told me the story behind the images in an e-mail:

"I am a 25-year-old working as a software developer for the University of Central Florida in Orlando, Fla. On Thursday, I was on my way back to my hometown of Richmond, Va., for my older brother's wedding. The flight was scheduled to take off at 2:25, and if it had been on time, I would have completely missed the launch. I think we took off at around 4:30 headed south, and slowly banked toward the north. Once we leveled out, the shuttle took off.

"I was actually seated on the opposite side of the plane, but luckily the window seat on the right side was open (which was the side the shuttle would be on). I asked the gentleman if I could sit there for a few minutes to film the launch, and he said sure. Once I was done filming, he gave me his contact info so I could show him the video. I had a digital camera with me which would have done a great job recording, but the batteries were dead, so I shot the video on my iPhone. I don't think I knew about the launch until 20 minutes before it happened. It was neat, because we could see the countdown on the TVs in the headrests and then just peek outside the window and see the real thing.

"I remember seeing another video on YouTube of a shuttle launch filmed from an airplane, and I thought it was one of the coolest things I had ever seen. Then to actually have the opportunity to see it in real life was absolutely fascinating. I have a feeling that I will be telling the story to my grandkids one day."

Science editor Alan Boyle and msnbc.com contributor John Roach joined forces on this posting. Tip o' the Log to Keith Cowing, who also presides over NASA Watch, SpaceRef, OnOrbit and other space websites.

Join the Cosmic Log community by clicking the "like" button on our Facebook page or by following msnbc.com science editor Alan Boyle as b0yle on Twitter. To learn more about Alan Boyle's book on Pluto and the search for planets, check out the website for "The Case for Pluto."