before becoming nasa's head man, charlie boldin was an astronaut. he flew four shuttle flights including the hubble launch. >> the international space station is the crowning jewel of the shuttle program. it represents the culmination. it's the perfect ending for the shuttle program. >> and it did something else. before the shuttle not a single woman or person of color had flown on a u.s. spacecraft. >> my going to space, you know, if i want to get personal, or women going to space would have never occurred without the space shuttle. >> the shuttle was proclaimed and sold as a vehicle that could fly 25 or 30 times a year. it never did. jeff greason was on president obama's blue ribbon committee that laid out pathways for future u.s. space exploration. >> if you think the goal was to develop low-cost, reliable space transportation and that it was not successful. >> and it never produced revolutionary scientific or medical breakthroughs. in the early years, nasa pushed to prove shuttles could fly often. weather was often a problem. no more so than on

before becoming nasa's head man, charlie boldin was an astronaut. he flew four shuttle flights including the hubble launch. >> the international space station is the crowning jewel of the shuttle program. it represents the culmination. it's the perfect ending for the shuttle program. >> and it did something else. before the shuttle not a single woman or person of color had flown on a u.s. spacecraft. >> my going to space, you know, if i want to get personal, or women going to space would have never occurred without the space shuttle. >> the shuttle was proclaimed and sold as a vehicle that could fly 25 or 30 times a year. it never did. jeff greason was on president obama's blue ribbon committee that laid out pathways for future u.s. space exploration. >> if you think the goal was to develop low-cost, reliable space transportation and that it was not successful. >> and it never produced revolutionary scientific or medical breakthroughs. in the early years, nasa pushed to prove shuttles could fly often. weather was often a problem. no more so than on

before becoming nasa's head man, charlie boldin was an astronaut.r shuttle flights including the hubble launch. >> i defy anybody, and i will argue with my apollo comrades, the accomplishments, the achievements, the record of performance, the spinoffs, the capabilities that have been developed. what we did in shuttle over 30 years dwarfed what was done in the apollo era. >> we can build spacecraft. we can guild hardware. we can build boosters, but there's no goal or no mission. we are wandering in the desert in space today. period. >> reporter: so why now? why call it quits now? from the time of its inception 40 years ago until the shuttles are retired, the program will have cost the american taxpayers just shy of $115 billion. that's less than $4 billion a year, a drop, if that, in the federal budget. still the problem is money. >> there's just not enough money in nasa to continue the existing programs and start a new program at the same time. >> reporter: was it time? >> yes, it was time. it has been time for some time to phase out of shuttle and

. >> we're joined by nasa administrator charlie boldin from cape canaveral, florida, very warm cape canaveral's a very emotional day for everyone involved with the space program and for americans as well. what are your thoughts now, sir? >> well, i think the mood down here is incredible. we just came from a celebration with all the workers here, with "atlantis" in the background and we've brought it off the runway, and it's an emotional high right now. i think everybody is still riding on probably one of the best flights we ever had. >> we had beyonce wake up the astronauts one day. we had cool and the gang with "celebrate" and i thought it was fitting, the last wake-up call was "god bless america." >> it is a very fitting wake-up call because as i tell everybody all the time this was america's program. that was not -- not a nasa program or anything. the space shuttle belongs to the taxpayers of america, you know. it was an investment that they made and while people can debate about whether it was worth it, you can't put a dollar value on the discoveries that came from the shuttle program, th

but as soon as they did, they were greeted by members of the nasa family, the administrator charlie boldinh director, mike linebach also meeting them. then commander ferguson went to the microphone and talked about what an extraordinary journey it had been, this shuttle program, and how he was now looking towards the future. >> we're going to put "atlantis" in a museum now. along with the other three orbiters. for generations that will come after us to admire and appreciate. and, hopefully, i want that picture of a young 6-year-old boy looking up at a space shuttle in a museum and -- and saying, you know, daddy, i want to do something like that when i grow up. or i want our country to do fantastic things like this for the continued future. and if we set those steps right now and they continue with that, that next generation of space explorers, then our consider our job here complete. >> reporter: "atlantis" will be towed from the runway over to what's known as the orbiter processing facility where thousands of shuttle workers will be allowed to go out and look at the vehicle one more time