Space Shuttle Atlantis Launches On Final Flight

Space Shuttle Atlantis has just launched from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. STS-135 marks the final flight for the shuttle program, 30 years after Columbia touched the sky during STS-1. The mission summary (PDF) outlines STS-135's crew and event timeline. NASA's launch blog has been following the countdown all morning, and our own CmdrTaco has been tweeting live from on-site. NASA TV is also being streamed live. Meteorological reports for the launch looked doubtful at first, but a gap in the bad weather at just the right time allowed everything to proceed as planned. Atlantis successfully reached its preliminary orbit in what a NASA official called a "flawless" launch.

Comments

Re:Godspeed Atlantis

[c0mpliant]

So ends America's wasteful spending on a program that didn't live up to what was promised. Maybe now space exploration can start heading back on the right direction

I was 3 years old

[deathcloset]

When Columbia launched, according to my mother, I watched 8 hours of the broadcast. All the way from the astronauts' breakfast to the press conference past the launch. I didn't move.

I guess even at that age we humans are capable of grasping the awesome and extraordinary quality of certain events.

I don't know why I'm posting, except perhaps that through my whole life I have felt a deep attachment to space exploration, science and technological achievement (all of which I've always considered to coincide with humanitarianism, if not cause). The space shuttle has been the icon, the embodiment of that attachment and love.

Lief Ericson made it to america first, but managed to stay only for a short while. It would be 500 more years before explorers returned from Europe (and not in the best form, it should be said).

I know we from Earth will return, and I hope and believe it will not be 500 more years.

Re:Godspeed Atlantis

[Tsingi]

Shutting down? Hardly. Aren't there exciting new research programs into how to turn shit and piss into delicacies? What could be more exciting?

I believe the program (If I remember correctly) researched how to turn piss into Coors Light or Bud. Hardly a delicacy, or even that much of a conversion.

Re:Commercial spaceflight ...

[BJ_Covert_Action]

You said:

Commercial space flight has no vision beyond sending tourists to LEO and throwing more satellites into higher orbits.

Meanwhile, the founder and CEO of a commercial spaceflight company says:

'I'm planning to retire to Mars'

-- Elon Musk: Founder and CEO of Space Exploration Technologies Corp. (Spacex) Citation: here.

If that's not vision, I don't know what the hell definition of vision you are using. I've personally toured the facilities of SpaceX, ULA, Lockheed, Boeing, Northrop Gruman, and JPL. I can tell you right now, the energy, enthusiasm, and drive at SpaceX is in a class of its own. That company, and its founder, has more vision for the space industry than the sum total of the other agencies I have listed combined.

Mark my words as an aerospace engineer: SpaceX is the future of successful United States space business, and they have the gumption and drive to pull off the stuff folks have been declaring to be impossible for about twenty years now. Just like Google lit a fire under the ass of stale computer companies like Microsoft and Apple, SpaceX is going to be the spark that fans a whole new flame and era of space exploration for the United States.