Shuttle Atlantis blasts off on final flight

By Anne K Walters and Marco Mierke Jul 8, 2011, 15:32 GMT

Cape Canaveral, Florida - Atlantis lit up the gray sky over Kennedy Space Centre Friday, thrilling hundreds of thousands of spectators before slipping behind the clouds in the last-ever lift-off by a space shuttle.

Despite threatening weather, the shuttle blasted off a few minutes later than planned at 11:29 am (1529 GMT), carrying four astronauts on a 12-day mission to the International Space Station.

A last-minute delay prompted a hold with 31-seconds left on the count-down clock as NASA verified the position of a gaseous vent arm to ensure it was out of the way for launch.

The nearly picture-perfect launch seemed a deserved close for the 30-year shuttle programme, where technical problems with the complex craft as well as weather have been a frequent feature. The launch also provided NASA a chance to reminisce on the shuttle's accomplishments, including the construction of the International Space Station and a new era of global cooperation in space.

'To me it looked like it was lifting off in slow motion,' said the shuttle programme's Mike Moses, who along with other usually stoic engineers admitted to reporters that the final launch had gotten him choked up. 'It was very moving, it was very beautiful.'

Crowds of up to a million people from across the United States had been gathering along Florida's Space Coast beginning Thursday, with many pitching tents and campers in parks and along highways to nab the best view.

'It is one of the few things in life I always wanted to see,' said Stephane Delettre, who watched the show from nearby Titusville with its clear view of the spaceport 20 kilometres away.

He travelled from Virginia and waited the whole night with his son Alex. 'The beauty of the shuttle, the noise, the vibration. That is a full-body-experience,' he noted afterwards.

Many visitors to Florida could not find places and were forced to spend the night outside or in their cars. No hotel rooms were available for miles and the traffic jam began at 6 am for the morning launch.

It was an emotional moment both for the crowds who had gathered and the astronauts and engineers who have spent their careers working on the shuttle programme.

'Good luck to you and your crew on the flight of this final American icon,' launch manager Mike Leinbach said from mission control to the Atlantis astronauts as they strapped in for the ride.

Commander Chris Ferguson replied: 'Until the very end you made it look easy. The shuttle's always going to be a reflection to what a great nation can do when it dares to be bold and commits to follow through. We're not ending the journey today - we're completing a chapter of a journey that will never end.'

The last launch brought tears to some and pride to others marking what many fear will be the end of US manned spaceflight.

'We always have to think forward for the benefit as a society,' said shuttle watcher Beverly Carrol. 'You cannot put a price tag on space exploration.'

Earlier this week, President Barack Obama defended his new vision for space in which NASA plans to build a new craft capable of traveling long distances, with the hope of one day making it to Mars or a nearby asteroid. In the meantime, commercial companies are developing craft to take cargo and astronauts into low-Earth orbit and to the station.

'We are still a leader in space exploration,' Obama said. 'The shuttle did some extraordinary work in low-orbit experiments, the International Space Station, moving cargo. It was an extraordinary accomplishment and we're very proud of the work that it did. But now what we need is that next technological breakthrough.'

'Let's start stretching the boundaries so we're not doing the same thing over and over again, but rather let's start thinking about what's the next horizon, what's the next frontier out there.'

Atlantis is delivering 3.8 tons of equipment and provisions to the International Space Station before the heavy-lift capability of the shuttle becomes a thing of the past. It will dock with the ISS on Sunday.

The four-member crew is among the smallest in years for the shuttle programme, which has usually flown with six or seven astronauts. The decision for a smaller crew was based in part on the lack of a back-up shuttle to rescue the crew in case of an emergency. Instead, the crew could be ferried home on a series of Russian Soyuz flights if needed.

Once the shuttle is retired, NASA astronauts will have to hitch 60-million-dollar rides on Soyuz while commercial craft are developed. Plans are to begin flying cargo on commercial spacecraft before allowing astronauts to fly in such craft.