we can shoot a man in too space, but we still cant clean up after our selfs.. look at all the junk that this ship drops in space. in 30 years you can book a flight in to space, and all u can see is a great floating garbage pile!...

I would love to see that live.

You are so far away, take at first it is a quite launch, but then you hear a tremendously loud sound, thats when you realize how powerful those rockets are

I guess its the greatest/most exciting/coolest 381 seconds you could ever have. A truly lifetime experience only within the reach of a handfull of lucky ones

lol a dove flew pass by the camera: 1:19

The category says it all...

#2, The parachutes at the end of the video clearly indicate that the solid rocket boosters on each side are collected and reused. The main external tank incinerates completely after miles of free fall through the atmosphere. The only "garbage" would be the products remaining from the rocket fuel combustion.

20-year old technology, now. When it was designed, there weren't any cell phones to speak of. The latest model was the size of a brick and you carried it in a bag. Think about that!!!

Great...now I have motion sickness.

#8 Your argument is invalid

An Awesome engineering feat, This Shuttle, Atlantis, has just returned from it last Voyage to be retired after 25 years and about 32 trips.

I saw that bird fly by and thought it to be a hawk?

at 0:55 it's the coolest angle and scene I've ever seen

To the infinity and beyond!

(sorry, had to say it)

2:20 thats to way to pollute...in style

#8 is a perfect example of why we need +1 -1 and WTF? buttons. Some comments don't necessarily deserve a -1. But a WTF? would be great!

sad that there are only two more launches for me to watch from my back yard.

Full version of this vid: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cKPqomW5kDI

its sad thou to retire this engineering marvel!

@(removed comment) You really think they don't update the hardware?

#(removed comment) I remember reading that the Shuttles each have 5 state of the art computers that constantly communicating with each other and if the smallest packet of data is dropped by any one computer, the remaining 4 shut down the one that "malfunctioned" to eliminate the possibility of accident due to computer error or failure.

I don't know what OS they are running but I doubt it is commercial and I would bet that it is years ahead of OSX and 7 put together...

#(removed comment)
"The Shuttle uses five identical IBM 32-bit general purpose computers. Four redundant computers run identical software - operating in lockstep, constantly checking each other. If one fails, the three functioning computers "vote" it out of the system. This isolates it from vehicle control. If a second computer of the three remaining fails, the two functioning computers vote it out. In the rare case of two out of four computers simultaneously failing (a two-two split), one group is picked at random.

A fifth backup computer system runs different software developed by a different company. The fifth computer is used only if the entire four-computer primary system fails."

If you want to know more, follow this link:
http://www.swqual.com/newsletter/vol4/no6/vol4no6.html

Garbage pile Lol do you realize how insignifigant our species or planet for that matter is. So a star going supernova and blowing out debree which created materials like iron that was later made into a rocket shell that eventually returned to space is garbage lol how small minded you are.