Let's light her up one last time! Atlantis overcomes a shaky launch to become the final Nasa shuttle to blast into space

One million spectators cram into Cape Canaveral and surrounding towns to watch the last launch of an American icon
Nervy moments as blast-off delayed 0.31 seconds from ignition due to launch pad problem
'Let's light this fire one more time', says Commander Christopher Ferguson as he fires the engines
Spectators include former astronauts, Congressmen and celebrities

Last updated at 11:51 PM on 8th July 2011

The space shuttle Atlantis thundered into orbit today, writing the final chapter in a 30-year story of triumphs, tragedy and, ultimately, unfulfilled expectations.

A million-strong crowd crammed into Cape Canaveral surrounding towns to bid an emotional farewell to the shuttle as they watched it lift off on its 135th and final mission.

They lined causeways and beaches around the central Florida site, angling for a last glimpse of the pioneering ship that has defined the U.S. space program for the past 30 years.

While there were nervy moments as the countdown stalled for two minutes at 31 seconds while engineers fixed a problem with launch pad equipment - nothing could stop the historic lift off.

'Good luck to you and your crew on this final flight of this true American icon,' shuttle launch director Mike Leinbach radioed to the crew minutes before takeoff, adding: 'Have a little fun up there.'

Scroll down for video and a history of the Nasa shuttle programme

One last hurrah: Atlantis blasts off for the International Space Station on Nasa's last space shuttle mission

Up, up and away: The shuttle almost didn't get off the ground though, as the giant countdown clock at Kennedy Space Center stuck at 0.31seconds for what seemed like an eternity

Just as the spectators at Cape Canaveral in Florida and tens of millions of television viewers around the world had given up hope, Atlantis began to rise

Commander Christopher Ferguson marked the occasion by announcing 'Let's light this fire one more time' minutes before he blasted into orbit.

'The shuttle is always going to be a reflection of what a great nation can do when it dares to be bold and commits to follow through,' he added.

It will be at least three years – possibly five or more – before astronauts are launched again from U.S. soil, and so this final journey of the shuttle era packed in crowds and roused emotions on a scale not seen since the Apollo moon shots.

Nasa has set a long-term goal of flying to an asteroid and eventually Mars. 'Enjoy a little time here with your families again. But we've got a lot of work to do. We've got another programme that we've got to get under way,' Nasa administrator Charles Bolden told the launch control team after Atlantis reached orbit.

He added: 'We know what we're doing. We know how to get there. We've just got to convince everybody else that we know what we're doing.'

Atlantis's crew will deliver a year's worth of critical supplies to the International Space Station and return with as much trash as possible. The shuttle is scheduled to come home on July 20 after 12 days in orbit.

When Atlantis returns to Earth for the final time, it will be placed in a museum with the other two shuttles.

As it lifted off, Mr Boden said: 'The space shuttle spreads its wings one final time for the start of a sentimental journey into history. We turn the page on a remarkable period in America's history in space, while beginning the next chapter in our nation's extraordinary story of exploration.'

Those watching from Cape Canaveral and surrounding towns included Nasa's original shuttle pilot, Robert Crippen, now 73. He flew Columbia, along with Apollo 16 moon-walker John Young, on the test flight in 1981.

The space shuttle Atlantis lifts off from the Kennedy Space Center today

Off to the ISS: The shuttle was visible for 42 seconds before disappearing into the clouds

The final countdown: The shuttle lifts off as hundreds of fans watch a giant clock countdown with 13 seconds to go

Best view in the house: Some of an estimated one million spectators watch the launch

Young children watch from a park in Titusville, Florida, as the space shuttle Atlantis launches

Emotional: Kennedy Space Center employee Lisa Gorichky cries as Space Shuttle Atlantis

Emotional: Kennedy Space Centre employee Lisa Gorichky, right, cries as the shuttle lifts off while children watch from a nearby park

Fond farewell: The blast-off marks the beginning of the end for Nasa's shuttle programme

Soaring high: Thousands gather in the surf and on sand at Cocoa Beach, Florida to watch the shuttle pierce the clouds

WE NEED A TECHNOLOGICAL BREAKTHROUGH, SAYS OBAMA

Nasa needs a new 'technology breakthrough' to take it to the next level in exploring the universe, President Barack Obama said last night as Atlantis was preparing for its final mission.

Mr Obama said he is 'proud' of America's past achievements in space but that now is the time to make a leap forward.

He said: 'We are still a leader in space exploration, but, frankly, I have been pushing Nasa to revamp its vision.

'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.'

Nasa originally promised 50 shuttle flights a year, but the programme suffered two tragic accidents that killed 14 astronauts and destroyed two shuttles – Challenger in 1986 and Columbia in 2003.

Nasa never managed more than nine flights in a single year. And the cost was almost £1billion a flight.

For the forseeable future, the U.S., the first country to put a man on the moon, will rely on Russia to fly its astronauts to the space station, at a cost of more than £30million a seat.

It was an initially shaky lift-off as the wet weather threatened to cause delays amid gloomy forecasts full of rain and heavy cloud cover.

But the spaceship lifted off at 11.29am local time - just two minutes late - thundering away on the 135th shuttle mission 30 years and three months after the very first flight.

The four experienced space fliers rode Atlantis from the same pad used more than a generation ago by the Apollo astronauts.The shuttle was visible for 42 seconds before disappearing into the clouds.

Nasa waived its own weather rules to allow the lift-off to go forward. In the end, though, the countdown was delayed not by the weather but by the need to make certain the launch pad support equipment was retracted all the way.

The crew will deliver a year's worth of critical supplies to the International Space Station and return with as much rubbish as possible.

Atlantis is scheduled to come home on June 20 after 12 days in orbit.Before taking flight, Commander Christopher Ferguson saluted all those who contributed over the years to the shuttle program.

'The shuttle is always going to be a reflection of what a great nation can do when it dares to be bold and commits to follow through,' he said.

'We're not ending the journey today... we're completing a chapter of a journey that will never end.'

It wasn't clear until the final moments of the countdown that the launch would come off.That was fitting in a way, since Florida's famously stormy weather delayed numerous shuttle missions almost from the start of the programme and was a major reason spaceflight never became routine, as Nasa had hoped for.

Nasa's original shuttle pilot, Robert Crippen, now 73, was among the 45,000 spectators inside the grounds of the international space centre.

He flew Columbia, along with Apollo 16 moonwalker John Young, on the inaugural test flight in 1981.

Other notables on the guest list included a dozen members of Congress, Cabinet members, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, four Kennedy family members, singers Jimmy Buffett and Gloria Estefan and two former National Aeronautics and Space Administration chiefs.

Ignition: Congressmen, former astrounauts and celebrities watched the Shuttle lift off

Looking down: The exhaust plume from Space Shuttle Atlantis is seen through the window of a Shuttle Training Aircraft as it launches

Aerial view: Space Shuttle Atlantis is seen through the window of a Shuttle Training Aircraft as it launches

Aerial view: The shuttle seen from a nearby Nasa aircraft as it lifts off. The plane subsequently flew through the remaining exhaust plume, left

One last time: The shuttle left a huge exhaust plume as it lifted off

No stopping now: A plume of smoke rises from the launch pad as Atlantis blasts into space

The final countdown: Commander Chris Ferguson gestures as he is strapped into his seat aboard Atlantis in footage screened on Nasa TV

Breakaway: Atlantis iseparates from its external fuel tank shortly after launch

Ready to roll: Atlantis crew members (from right to left) Commander Chris Ferguson, Rex Walheim, Doug Hurley and Sandra Magnus, head to shuttle Atlantis on launch pad 39-A for the final launch of the shuttle programme

Astrovan awaits: The astronauts wave to photographers before making the short journey to the launch pad

HISTORY OF THE NASA SHUTTLE PROGRAMME

Soon-to-be-retired: Atlantis undocks from the International Space Station in September 2006

The space shuttle was sold to America as cheap, safe and reliable. It was none of those.It cost $196billion over 40 years, ended the lives of 14 astronauts and managed to make less than half the flights promised.

Nasa's first space shuttle flight was in April 1981. The 135th and final launch is set for Friday.Once Atlantis lands at the end of a 12-day mission, it and the other two remaining shuttles are officially museum pieces - more expensive than any paintings.

The total price tag for the programme was more than twice the $90billion Nasa originally calculated.Soon-to-be-retired: Atlantis undocks from the International Space Station in September 2006

Soon-to-be-retired: Atlantis undocks from the International Space Station in September 2006. Six years ago, then-Nasa chief Michael Griffin even called the shuttle programme a mistake.

But as a mistake it is one that paid off in wildly unexpected ways that weren't about money and reliability. 'The discoveries it enabled, the international co-operation it fostered and the knowledge it gained - often at great human cost - has also contributed in countless, important ways to humanity and our common progress,' former president George Bush Sr said.

Mr Bush oversaw the programme's early days as vice-president, a job that has traditionally included supervising Nasa.

University of Colorado science policy professor Roger Pielke Jr., who studies shuttle costs and policies, said there are probably other ways the U.S. could have spent several billion dollars a year on a human space programme and gained more.

When the shuttle succeeded, it did so in a spectacular way. But its failures were also large and tragic. Seven astronauts died when Challenger exploded about a minute after launch in 1986 and seven more died when Columbia burned up as it returned to Earth in 2003.

Thousands of shuttle workers will be laid off within days of Atlantis' return, on top of the thousands who already have lost their jobs. And the three remaining shuttles will become museum pieces.

This day of reckoning has been coming since 2004, a year after the Columbia tragedy, when President George W Bush announced the retirement of the shuttle and put Nasa on a course back to the moon. President Barack Obama cancelled the back-to-the-moon programme in favour of trips to an asteroid and Mars.

But Nasa has yet to work out the details of how it intends to get there, and has not even settled on a spacecraft design.

The space shuttle demonstrates America's leadership in space, and 'for us to abandon that in favour of nothing is a mistake of strategic proportions,' said former Nasa Administrator Michael Griffin, who led the agency from 2005 to 2008.

After Atlantis' lights-out, 33rd flight, private rocket companies will take over the job of hauling supplies and astronauts to the space station. The first supply run is targeted for later this year, while the first trip with astronauts is projected to be years away.

Until those flights are up and running, American astronauts will be hitching rides to and from the space station via Russian Soyuz capsules, at more than $50million per trip.

Russia will supply the rescue vessels for Ferguson and his crew if Atlantis ends up severely damaged in flight.

Hope: Nasa engineers fill Atlantis's tanks with rocket fuel this morning ahead of the shuttle's final flight

Lightning: A bolt struck about a third of a mile from Atlantis today. Nasa engineers didn't detect any damage

Wet: The Vehicle Assembly Building is seen through a window during a downpour at Space Center earlier today

Cover: Up to one million people are expected to try to watch the final shuttle launch live. Many are now ducking for cover in bad weather

Raincheck: A TV journalist is shielded by an umbrella as he reports from beside the launch pad

While the weather is set to improve slightly over the weekend, today's forecast would have to get worse before he'd call off the launch, mission management team leader Mike Moses said.

A rain-free, storm-free zone is needed 23miles around, among other things, in order for Atlantis to take off.

Launch director Mike Leinbach doesn't just want a hole in the clouds for Atlantis to sneak through, he wants no clouds for this historic send-off - the last of the 30-year shuttle programme.Between 750,000 and one million people are expected to jam the area for the launch, rivalling the crowds that gathered for the Apollo moon shots. Perhaps millions more will be watching on television. But the Russian spaceships can carry only three people, including two crew members, and any rescue would require a series of back-and-forth trips. That is why only four astronauts are flying Atlantis, the smallest crew in decades.

That reliance on Russia - with no other back-up - has many space veterans worried.A contingent of old-time flight directors and astronauts, Crippen included, is seeking a last-ditch reprieve for the space shuttle, at least until something is ready to take its place.

Mr Crippen acknowledged it is futile at this point. 'I'm afraid that ship has sailed,' he said on the eve of the launch.

But noting the improvements that had been made in the shuttles over the past three decades, he said: 'Those vehicles, in my opinion, could fly for another 30 years and could be flown safely.'

This last journey by Atlantis may be stretched to 13 days if enough power can be conserved. Weather permitting, the shuttle will return to Kennedy Space Center, where it will be put on public display. Discovery and Endeavour already are retired and being prepped for museums across the country.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2012253/Atlantis-space-shuttle-launch-Spaceship-overcomes-shaky-launch-Nasa-shuttle-blast-space.html

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