As part of our coverage of the final mission of the shuttle Atlantis, STS 135, Science Weekly hitches an oral and acoustic ride on the shuttle. Ian Sample spoke to two shuttle veterans, the Anglo-American meteorologist Piers Sellers and former US army test pilot Scott Altman.
Both men discuss the visceral experience of a shuttle launch and the day-to-day experience of entering orbit, docking with the International Space Station and finally re-entering the atmosphere on the shuttle's return to Earth.
Space shuttle launch - as it happened
Eyewitness: "I feel the percussive roar on the skin of my face"
Final liftoff - in pictures
Read all the Guardian's shuttle coverage here
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