Welcome back to first look. i m veronica de la cruz. now nasa is saying good-bye to its space shuttle program. atlantis will embark on the final supply run to the space station this morning, weather permits. dan billow looks back at the iconic program s historic run. reporter: it was way back in 1978 that president jimmy carter showed off what was built to be an amazing machine. the shuttle has cleared the tower. john young of orlando and bob krippin seemed on their way to fulfilling the great promise when lifted off. the disapointments and the fatal accidents seemed to follow one after another. but the space shuttle slowly began proving itself. the shuttle s payload bay. it s impressive.
Charged with planning terrorist acts. pakistani american from alexandria, virginia, pleaded not guilty to terrorism charges. they re accused of conspireing against america, to end nato forces. the defense will present its case when the trial continues next month. in southern california, the episcopal church is ordaining its first openly lesbian bishop this afternoon. she has been with her partner for 19 years now. she s first openly gay u.s. bishop. the crew of the space shuttle atlantis has been busy today, this is a view of the payload bay that is carrying six new batteries, a new satellite dish, and a russian mini research module. the crew spent the day inspecting the shuttle for any damage in preparation for a docking with the international space station. michael jackson s mausoleum is adorned with bright yellow flowers today, thanks to a flower grower with a big heart.
Missions. joining us right now from cape canaveral in florida, chris guiterrez who had a bird s eye view from the launch. it was a picture perfect launch from our view here in florida. nasa, as you know is combing over dozens of different camera angles to make sure the belly wasn t compromised in any way during the launch. it s the 13 day mission in which the space shuttle discovery is carrying 27,000 pounds of cargo inside its payload bay, this area here. most of it is scientific equipment racks of different scientific experiments and a lot of spare parts for the international space station. our astronauts are scheduled to take part in three different space walks and spend 100 hours moving that cargo around. it should be very interesting to watch. back to you guys in new york. all right. chris guiterrez at cape canaveral where somebody has been to the gift shop. thank you very much for that live report. you bet.
it s a little bulky. and gets pressurized and makes it tougher actually. this while you re doing the stuff in these pictures. i-max sent up some great big i-max cameras so you could actually deliver 3-d pictures of stuff we ve never seen before. and it was i understand they took pictures during three different missions, is that right? they did. they ve got i-max cameras on board the shuttle for many missions. who was doing the film making? they kind of told us what to do. they were stuck with us as camera people up there. and we had a big i-max camera in the payload bay which took a footage of the space walk and of the telescope coming in and out of the payload bay when we worked on it. you can see the earth in the background. it s the closest thing to being there. when you come back to space, you wanna go to see that stuff. now i feel fortunate. i like going back to space but i can just go to the movie theater. you seem excited.