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Music

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NARRATOR: Space shuttle Atlantis stands on Launch Pad 39A one last time following a nearly

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seven-hour ride to the structure on the top of a crawler-transporter. For 30 years,

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space shuttles stacks have moved down the same three-and-a-half-mile stretch of river rock on

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their way to pad A or B at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

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Atlantis earned cheers as it began its journey from the Vehicle Assembly Building at 8:42 p.m.

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on May 31, 2011. NASA invited employees and their families to see the last rollout,

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and the astronauts who will fly the STS-135 mission came to see it too.

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Chris Ferguson, STS-135 Commander: What you see there is a product of a nation

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who is willing to combine its resources to build a world-class vehicle

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that has no duplicate whatsoever.

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NARRATOR: Eight strong bolts held the 4 1/2 million-pound shuttle stack

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to the mobile launch platform.

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The shuttle completed its move on June 1 at 3:29 a.m.

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Now at the pad, Atlantis will soon receive its last payload,

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a cargo module called Rafaello that will be packed full of equipment,

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experiments and lots of supplies for the six people living on the International Space Station.

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Atlantis is targeted to make the final flight of the Space Shuttle Program in July,

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thundering aloft once more from the same launch complex that launched the program's first

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groundbreaking mission 30 years ago.

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