4,000 shuttle staff to lose jobs after final Atlantis mission

CAPE CANAVERAL: Up to 1,800 jobs at Kennedy Space Centre will go today, with 2,000 more expected to be lost in the coming months following the last mission of space shuttle Atlantis. Close to 9,500 contract workers in total will have been laid off nationwide from the shuttle programme's demise.

NASA administrator Charles Bolden said the agency would try to bring back unemployed shuttle workers to help on private sector spaceflight ventures or for NASA's efforts to build a vehicle for an eventual mission to an asteroid or Mars. NASA has yet to settle on a rocket design to get astronauts there.