The Space Shuttle: Flying for Me

>>Fergie, Doug, Sandy, and Rex.

Good luck, God speed, and have a little fun up there.

Verify ready to resume count and go for launch.

>>Two, one, zero and lift off.

>>When the engines light and then those solid rocket boosters

light you know you're gonna go flying.

If the bolts didn't fire they would pull the launch pad with it.

It's that much power.

>>Having a chance to fly the most amazing flying machine ever built

was just incredible.

>>Every time a child draws a spaceship for us and

sends it to us it's in the shape of a Space Shuttle.

That image, the silhouette of the Space Shuttle is an iconic

image that I think is going to last for generations.

>>The pure number of astronauts that

the Space Shuttle program brought to space

have made a difference for humanity.

>>What I think one of the most lasting achievements of the

shuttle program was I think it allowed us to carry so many

people into orbit that had such a wide spectrum of backgrounds

and capabilities and it allowed young people to dream.

>>This exhibit is a powerful reminder of NASA's

unmatched accomplishments during more than 50 years of exploration

and the great future that lies ahead.

With their payload bay doors wide open,

Atlantis is literally reaching out with open arms to welcome

all visitors, create our unprecedented achievements in space,

and inspire a new generation.

>>Atlantis has flown 126 million miles in space,

2 and a half million handmade parts.

It was made by man and it was made by people that were

dedicated to the program for over 30 years and that really is

something really special.

This is not the end of the program and

thats really a strong message.

We've got a great opportunity on STS-136 here, which is the

next mission for Atlantis and that is to inspire

and teach and really

get the next generation of kids ready to go to space.

>>Of my 7 Space Shuttle flights, 5 of them

were on the Space Shuttle Atlantis so obviously

Atlantis is my favorite bird.

But when I first walked into the facility down there I was

overwhelmed and then when the curtains opened and you walk out

and see Atlantis being so perfectly displayed

it was a very melancholy moment for me.

I had a mixture of emotions.

I had an overwhelming joy of seeing it being displayed so well

so that people could get up close to it and see the wonders

of the incredible devise, the incredible hardware that we flew in space.

But at the same time I had this feeling that I wish we were

still flying to vehicle because because it was an incredible flying machine.

And it gave us capabilities to operate in space

we may never see again.

>>After 30 years of missions,

the Space Shuttle program is over.

The orbiters are now gifts to the American people.

Atlantis at the Kennedy Space Center visitors complex in Florida...

Discovery now at the Smithsonian National Air

And Space Musuem in Virginia...

Endeavour put on quite a show on its way to the California

Science Center in Los Angeles.

And Enterprise, the first shuttle used only in test landings,

is on display at the Intrepid Sea-Air-Space Museum in New York City

with the massive orbiters relegated to museums,

2011 and the final flight of the Space Shuttle is

now but a dream...

>>We would go down to places like the Kennedy Space Center

and people would come up to us and say ' Hey just want to

let you know I've been working for 25 years and this is my last day.'

And at first you would say,

I'm so sorry but almost to a person they would come back

and say ' No don't be sorry.

I am so happy that I was able to be a part of this program.'

And so it was really amazing to see the dedication people

had to that program.

But there's one other thing the shuttle would be remembered for.

Beauty.

The shuttle was just as beautiful on its last flight

as it was on its first.

When we were in the Astrovan on the way to the launch pad for

STS-135, we rounded the final curb and headed straight for it.

The view of the shuttle on the launch pad was simply

breathtaking as it always is.

>>2, 1, 0 and lift off.

The final lift off of Atlantis.

>>People always say how does it feel to fly the last flight

and for me the time it hit me the most I think was when

we undocked from the space station and I was looking out

the window and I could see the station and I was shooting a

hand held laser to give us data about how for it was away.

Then I backed away from the window and kind of floated down

to a corner and as I did I had a few seconds

and I heard Ron Garren on the Radio say,

>>"Atlantis will be parting from

the International Space Station for the last time."

>>And it just gave me a little bit of a lump in the throat

and I go, "Wow this is it."

>>Atlantis weighs anchor from the International Space Station

for the last time.

Twelve and a half years of shuttle missions to build and

service a million pound complex at an end.

>>Space Shuttle flight director and NASA veteran

since the 1960's, Milt Heflin, is the only person to be present

at the final splashdown of Apollo, and the final landing

of the Space Shuttle.

>>When Atlantis came out of the darkness for the 135 landing at

the end of the runway my thought was

boy, she is really strutting her stuff.

She is kind of looking at us and telling us, ok, you guys we're

really good at what we're doing and we're stopping it.

I just want you to know I recognize that,

I'm not happy about that, but we have accomplished a lot in this program.

>>The final touchdown of Atlantis ended an era for the world's

first and only re-usable spacecraft...

>>I believe the Space Shuttle is going to go down in history as

one of the most remarkable advances in aviation and in space ever.

A reusable space vehicle.

We have never had one before.

That was such a giant leap forward.

>>I think we've also done an awfully lot in the last 30 years.

The shuttle and the space station,

international partnership, the total spectrum of what has come

out of that activity in my judgment is equal to at least

the accomplishment of landing on the moon.

>>It is a vehicle that houses 1960's and 1970's technology.

We have learned to take these technologies and put them to

work and get more out of them then we ever imagined before.

>>You had an airplane that could launch like a rocket,

go up into space and be a spacecraft,

spend 2 weeks in orbit, fly back down and land on a runway

like a big cargo airplane.

Nothing before it and nothing since has taken its place.

>>The concept of a re-usable space plane has been around as long as

NASA began launching men into orbit with rockets,

beginning with the Mercury Program in the early 1960's.

With Gemini and later Apollo, the rockets only got bigger as

the United States landed on the Moon in the first 10 years of

its space program.

>>Tranquility Base here. The Eagle has landed.

>>The moon landings were mankind's greatest feat,

but as john young and charlie duke scampered on the moon's

surface in the spring of 1972, Congress approved funding for

NASA's next goal...to make Space a livable and workable place...

at a more affordable price.

The people who got us to the Moon began to turn their

attention to the Space Shuttle.

>>The concept was re-usable and I think that was a nobel endeavor

and it turned out to be a re-usable space craft

took a lot of care and feeding but that was the goal.

>>Glynn Lunney, a veteran flight director of Apollo,

would become one the early program managers of the Space Shuttle.

>>NASA and the space team had a pretty clear goal

of building a machine that could take people and things

up the Earth's orbit and bring them back home

and it could do it fairly lively,

much more reliably then we were doing with the Apollo

and it could do it more cheaply.

When it was ultimately approved by President Nixon in 1972

the whole project picked up a great amount of steam and moved

forward in the design of this vehicle turned out to be

partially re-usable and thats what took us into the shuttle program.

>>As Lunney oversaw the Skylab and Apollo-Soyuz missions of the mid-70's,

the shuttle began to take shape.

>>So while we were doing that there was major progress being made

in the design and construction of the Space Shuttle

and I give full credit to Bob Thompson who was

the program manager on all those years of the 70's

and to his team of people.

>>So the issue we're arguing is a functional test.

You ought a just function a test...

>>We thought we might want to build a two stage fully re-usable

vehicle with a big flyback booster at Marshall and a big orbiter.

A JSC much like the Apollo mode.

But that vehicle was quite complex.

It cost quite a bit.

So we figured out a more simple way to do the same thing

which in my judgement turned out to be

a better way to do the whole thing.

>>The Space Shuttle was a new way to fly.

Its development was plagued by cost overruns,

delays, and critics, but by 1981,

Apollo veteran John Young and rookie Bob Crippen

were ready to fly the shuttle's first mission.

With its solid rocket boosters, external tank,

and main engines on the Orbiter Columbia,

the Space Shuttle was set to make history.

And on April 12th, Columbia blasted off from

Launch Complex 39 at Kennedy Space Center...

>>6,5,4 we've gone from main engine starts

And the shuttle has cleared the tower.

>>It was almost miraculous that it flew that first time.

A friend of mine in the astronaut office said it

looked like a butterfly bolted to a bullet.

It just took my breath away, it rattled my bones to be that

close to a space launch.

>>As soon as Columbia lifted off...Mission Control at

Johnson Space Center in Houston took over the flight.

Milt Heflin was monitoring the orbiter's power systems in a

back room that day.