Atlantis lifts off

STS-135, the final space shuttle mission, has lifted off.

When I was a producer for the Hubble Space Telescope, I had the privilege of witnessing a space shuttle launch at the Kennedy Space Center. It’s a visceral experience unlike anything else I had been a part of before or since. Putting men and women atop a massive controlled explosion for the purpose of injecting them into low earth orbit is a complex and dangerous task that NASA’s human space flight specialists have made look routine most of the time, for decades on end. Hats off to them for today’s successful launch, and godspeed to the crew of space shuttle Atlantis.