For NASA's engineers, Discovery's on-time landing on Monday in Florida after a picture-perfect mission erased huge question marks about the shuttle programme - and cleared the way for NASA's next vision of building a base on the moon.

After years of stop-and-go progress on the International Space Station (ISS), after delays from the 2003 Columbia disaster and glitches in last year's return flight, Discovery astronauts carried out repairs on the ISS needed to double its size and weight within the next 18 months.

The ISS programme, supported by NASA and more than a dozen other countries, including Russia, Germany and Japan, is the most ambitious construction programme ever in space.

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