The Space Shuttle Atlantis lifted off from KSC at 2:20 p.m. Friday May 14th for it’s 32nd and last mission.

The space shuttle program is now down to it’s last two launches, to be completed in November.

Like most folks who keep track of space goings-on, even us old tin-foilers who cut our eye-teeth on Mercury, Gemini and Apollo, we’ll be saddened when the last shuttle launches because the shuttle is a ship, not a capsule like Soyuz, the Chinese Shenzhou and the future Orion and/or Dragon.

There’ll never be the likes of the shuttle ever again. Unless someone in the private sector eventually builds a modern one.

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Launch of Atlantis

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X1babps3P5c&hl=en_US&fs=1&%5D