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Space Shuttle Atlantis Lifts Off on Final Mission
VOA - July 08, 2011
The U.S. space shuttle Atlantis blasted off Friday on a mission to the International Space Station (ISS), the 135th and final flight of the 30-year-old space shuttle program.
The space agency NASA said as many as 1 million people were gathered in and around the Kennedy Space Center in Florida to watch the historic liftoff. Launch control called the space mission "a sentimental journey."
VOA - S. Presto
US Space shuttle fan sports her "shuttle socks" ahead of Atlantis launch at Kennedy Space Center in Florida, July 8, 2011
The shuttle's four-member crew will deliver supplies, spare parts and science experiments to the International Space Station during its 12-day mission.
The space shuttles have served as the complex workhorses of the U.S. manned space program for the last 30 years, playing a key role in the building and operation of the International Space Station (ISS) and performing other important missions. The end of the shuttle program leaves the United States without its own manned spacecraft.
Suzanne Presto | Kennedy Space Center - VOA - July 08, 2011
Photo: VOA Photo S. Presto
Stephen Bach, a landscape painter from Orlando, Florida, observes the plume left over from the final space shuttle launch in Cape Canaveral, Florida, July 8, 2011
Standing on the grounds of Kennedy Space Center, facing the launch pad as a space shuttle lifts off, is an experience that defies words. Friday's historic launch of Atlantis marks the beginning of the end for NASA's space shuttle fleet.
It is an almost impossible experience to describe. Upon liftoff, there is a bright blaze from the engines, a flaming trail that cuts the sky vertically, the cloud plume that begins in silence, going up, and then the thunder that mounts and rolls into a noise that seems to make both the sky and your stomach shudder.
Stephen Bach, a landscape painter from Orlando, Florida, watched the launch from the Kennedy Space Center, two paintings in progress on an easel before him, both of the shuttle. He gazed directly across the water at Atlantis on the launch pad, and then, Atlantis in flight.
"It's just a really amazing sight, and I don't think you can describe it until you see it, you know," said Bach. "I've seen it 30 times, I'm sure, through the years from Orlando or from some place off the Cape. But this is just another level."
VOA Photo S. Presto
But Bach is a painter, a man well versed in images and details, and he describes the seconds after Atlantis disappeared above the clouds.
"The plume is amazing, and it's cast a shadow across the bottom of the cloud layer which is just astounding," Bach added. "It's almost as impressive as the launch, but in a different way. You can see the yellow coming through the inside of the plume. It's just a very remarkable sight. It's nothing like you picture it when you watch it on TV. It's just tenfold better, you know. Amazing."
As Bach still gazed at the plume, barely able to look away, his painting of Atlantis taking flight garnered another shuttle watcher's attention. The landscape painter who turned his talents to the sky had an offer to buy, before the plume had even vanished.
