The Final Space Shuttle Launch: Atlantis STS-135 (liveblog + webcast)

Watch live streaming video from spaceflightnow at livestream.com

Greetings from NASA's Kennedy Space Center. I'm here with thousands of other space devotees and media folk for the 135th and final launch of the Space Shuttle. If weather and technology permit, we will see Atlantis and her four-person crew lift off at 11:26am ET, headed on a mission to bring supplies to the International Space Station. I'm here at the press mound with space reporter Miles O'Brien and the SpaceFlightNow crew, who will be hosting a live webcast, rain or shine, scrub or launch, starting at 630am ET. I'll post updates in this post as events progress, and you may also want to follow on Twitter: @xenijardin for my fast personal observations, and @SpaceFlightNow for short news updates.

Current chatter from those in the know: 30% odds for launch, but all of the experienced shuttle reporters and astronauts around our camp are cautiously optimistic. If today is a scrub, Saturday's weather looks better than Sunday's. The two most likely points at which we'd hear "no go": just before the crew get on board, or then, of course, just at the final countdown. Here's Bill Harwood's take.

[photo below: SpaceFlightNow producer Kate Tobin surveys the many live HD feeds that will comprise today's webcast.]

• [hooch66]

  I love Miles O’Brien’s discussion he just had about media coverage of space flights and critique of CNN (he said they only reason they covered launches at all was in case the thing exploded)

• [Anonymous]

  This today is a sad day in the US we have done so much and NASA lanches still have so much that can be done all my life I have dreamed of going to spaces I would give anything for that chance. It is truly said to see the last lanch Thank you NASA for showing us all that anything is possible and that impossible dreams can come true wish I could be their rather then waching on tv wish I was on my way to spaces with them

• [spill]

  Sad to see it end. A magnificent beastie!

• [Anonymous]

  The only justification for the space shuttle/space station is that Nixon signed a secret treaty with aliens to limit human space exploration. The busy work of the past decades was just a cover.
  http://thinkingaboot.blogspot.com/2011/07/flying-outhouses-last-dump.html

• [Anonymous]

  It just don’t make sense to scrap the shuttle, its like having a buityful vehecle in our space programe that woud take billions to duplicate and to retire it when we could keep it going untill we have a better way to get to the ISS. so many workers out of a job. thanks o b a m a you slowly destroying this country.

  • [jmcgarry]

    Oh little troll, I’m certain BB readers are well-read enough to know that the Shuttle program was killed in Bush’s January 2004 speech: A New Vision for Space Exploration: http://www.nasa.gov/pdf/54868main_bush_trans.pdf Whatever Obama has done or not done, it certainly wasn’t scrapping the Shuttle. I do agree that it is a beautiful vehicle, albeit expensive and perhaps not as safe or cost effective as it could’ve been.

  • [Brainspore]

    It just don’t make sense to scrap the shuttle, its like having a buityful vehecle in our space programe that woud take billions to duplicate and to retire it when we could keep it going…

    It would also take billions to keep it going. The total price tag of the program breaks down to around a billion bucks a launch. Whether you like the shuttle or hate it, it’s hard to make a case that it’s a frugal way to get people and equipment to space.

    The shuttle was an ambitious and instructive program but it’s been over 30 years now. We didn’t go into WWII with Wright Flyers. Let’s take what we learned and build something better… ideally something that doesn’t carry an almost 2% chance of total crew and vehicle loss per launch.

• [Tristan Eldtritch]

  Hail Atlantis!:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9AUEjzVQwKo

• [Tau’ma]

  ♫ R.E.M. I remember California ♫

  • [Anonymous]

    Ah, yes…I remember it well. Missing California.

• [dj]

  Greetings from Brunswick

• [Bubba]

  I’d love to have seen one of these taking off. Never will now :(

• [NoctilucentStudios]

  In some ways, it almost feels too sad to type. In other ways, I am hoping the finality of this will be a huge impetus to private spaceflight. Fare Thee Well, STS. You have performed magnificently.

• [OldBrownSquirrel]

  I’ve seen quite a few “abandoned theme park photo spread” stories on Boing Boing over the years. I dread thinking of what KSC is going to look like in twenty years.

  • [querent]

    alligators can haz space suits…?

• [ismism]

  Pretty excited to see the video switching software I designed being used for this.
  (On the laptop)

• [z7q2]

  I saw the launch of STS-26 from here and it was an amazing experience. The 30-second sound delay is the most interesting part, you watch the shuttle rising silently on it’s fire trail and then the crackle of the SRBs starts to pummel you, you can feel it in your chest.