George Diller/Shuttle Ground Operations Commentator: And the commander is now
leaving the crew transport vehicle along with our other astronauts,
being greeted by our NASA administrator and our Center Director Bob Cabana.
We see Sandy Magnus, Doug Hurley, Rex Walheim and Chris Ferguson.
There's the Atlantis banner that was actually on the hatch of Atlantis
when the hatch was closed.
And now we're underneath Atlantis.
Going to be going over to the landing gear and looking at the tiles with the remainder of
the crew.
There's our administrator, Charlie Bolden again, Pilot Doug Hurley, Sandy Magnus.
Bob Cabana is talking with our commander, Chris Ferguson.
Bob Cabana also has served as an astronaut on the space shuttle.
Rex Walheim, and we see our purge equipment in the background that hooks up to the aft
of Atlantis, providing all the cooling right now. Atlantis' onboard cooling systems are off.
NASA Administrator Charles Bolden: They have come to be known as the
'Final Four' and they did an absolutely incredible job.
If you had an opportunity to watch anytime during the mission,
they were like racehorses the whole time. So they made us very proud.
You know, we've been exploring since early in our country's history.
And what Fergie and his crew did this time was kind of close out this era of our
exploration. But I want everybody who was involved in this to feel incredibly proud of
what you did, and what your role was.
Like me, they got an opportunity to do the flying, but we owe an incredible debt of
gratitude to the thousands -- literally tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands -- of
folks around the country who made all this possible. I had a chance to talk to some of you
this morning and, you know, we were lining up the convoy.
I thank you again for everything that you've done.
The things that we've done have set us up for exploration of the future,
but I don't want to talk about that right now. I just want to salute this crew,
welcome them home, let them know how proud we are of them. And Fergie,
I ask you to come on up and talk for your crew here.
(Applause)
STS-135 Commander Chris Ferguson: Thank you Charlie, we really appreciate those
remarks. I'll tell you what, you know, flying in space is a real dream.
But flying in space has a lot more to do with who you do it with than what you do.
And these three folks -- Rex and Sandy and Doug -- I'll tell you, a commander couldn't
ask for three better people to go and perform an aggressive and, to a certain extent,
historic mission. I mean, there's no doubt that there was a lot of attention paid to this
mission because it does bring to a final close the 30 years of space shuttle history.
I'm going to speak on behalf of them and just say that we're all, the three of us,
or four of us, were honored to be a part of this. But ultimately, it's everyone who has
worked on the shuttle program. Although we got to take the ride, we sure hope that
everybody who has ever worked, or touched, or looked at, or envied, or admired a space
shuttle was able to take just a little part of the journey with us.
We're going to put Atlantis in a museum now, along with the other three orbiters,
for generations that will come after us to admire and appreciate.
And hopefully, I want that picture of a young, six-year-old boy looking up at a space
shuttle in a museum and say, Daddy, I want to do something like that when I grow up.
Or, I want our country to do fantastic things like this for the continued future.
And if we set those steps right now, and they continue with that next generation of space
explorers, then I consider our job here complete. So again, on behalf of the crew,
thank you so much for the time and the attention. And for the folks at KSC,
thank you for this fantastic vehicle. It performed absolutely wonderfully.
Not a glitch. And it's just as pristine as it was, I hope, on the day that we took it ?
barring, maybe, a door to the WCS, which opened up a little bit on entry. (Laughing)
But everything is wonderful, the vehicle is great, and thank you very much.
(Applause)