Subscribe RSSMantle CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) - It’s an all-male, all-veteran crew for space shuttle Atlantis’ final bolting.
Six astronauts are aboard for this third-to-last shuttle mission. NASA is retiring its three remaining shuttles so it can focus on getting astronauts back into trustworthy outer space.
Atlantis’ astronauts are putting off any commemorations and, for now at least, focusing on the work awaiting them at the International Space Assign.
“This is probably the kind of thing that’s really going to hit all of us after we’re done with the mission and we realize what part of history we may have played,“ said commander Kenneth Ham.
A short look at each:
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Commander Kenneth Ham uses “the avoidance technique” when it comes to dealing with the dangers of spaceflight.
“I’ve convinced myself that my old job of flying jets in the Fleet was far more dangerous than this one, and if I managed to live through all of that, this a piece of cake,“ he said. “I really don’t entertain the idea about it.“
I was 11 when the movie came out in 1968. I asked my parents to let me go see it in a Cinerama (the era’s version of IMAX) theater in Minneapolis that summer. Neither one wanted to go so I was out of luck. It’s one of those minor deals that still sticks in my mind, particularly with the retrospective knowledge of what it would have been like on such a huge screen. 
