3-2-1...Blastoff!

Vocabulary 

Manned launch = a launch is when a spaceship takes off; manned means the spaceship has people on board

NASA = National Aeronautics and Space Administration

From Time For Kids

At 11:29 a.m., 2011, almost one million people lined Florida's beaches and held their breath as they witnessed the final blastoff of the space shuttle Atlantis.

"It's just so powerful," said Cherie Cabrera, who came to watch the launch. "There are so few people who have the ability to go to space, and to be here watching it launch and feeling it rise, you feel like you're a part of it." For Cabrera and other space fans, this is their last chance to see a manned launch for several years. The shuttle program is ending because of its high budget. One flight costs about $1.45 billion and NASA has spent $196 billion on the program.

For the final four shuttle astronauts who boarded Atlantis earlier this morning, the trip had special meaning. Commander Christopher Ferguson saluted those who were part of the space program as Atlantis launched only 2½ minutes after its scheduled takeoff time.

 

Ferguson and his crew are headed for the International Space Station (ISS), a lab that orbits Earth and houses space crews from many different countries. The shuttle is bringing the ISS more than 8,000 pounds of supplies, which will last about a year. Atlantis will bring back to Earth as much of the trash accumulated at the ISS as possible.

An Awesome History

The craft's 12-day mission ends a remarkable 30-year program. Since 1981, five different shuttle vehicles have been sent into space. There have been 135 space voyages and the shuttles have carried a total of 777 astronauts. The crafts have traveled a combined distance of half a billion miles—far enough to have flown past Jupiter.

The shuttle program has increased our knowledge of space. Its astronauts helped build the ISS and its shuttles have flown scientists and researchers to live and work aboard the space station. In addition, shuttle crews launched unmanned probes to study Venus, the sun and Jupiter. The Hubble Space telescope, which still orbits Earth and sends back photos of deepest space, was launched—and later repaired—by shuttle astronauts. Hubble is considered to be the most advanced space observatory ever sent into orbit.

Next on the Horizon: Orion

Atlantis is the last space shuttle to orbit Earth, but NASA has big plans for further space exploration. Sometime in 2016, a spacecraft known as Orion will launch. Orion is a more advanced version of the Apollo spacecraft, which went to the moon. NASA officials say Orion may visit Mars and even nearby asteroids.

So though the shuttle program is ending, space fans have much to look forward to. "The shuttle is always going to be a reflection of what a great nation can do when it dares to be bold," said Mike Leinbach, NASA's launch director. "We're not ending the journey today . . . we're completing a chapter of a journey that will never end."