Hello space fans!! I am both honored and thrilled to be coming to you live from the NASA Press site!! Do to some wonderful people at NASA and the power of Twitter and the NASATweetup I was able to gain access to the press site to watch the final launch. I am literally FEET away from the countdown clock!

The atmosphere is very energetic here! There are many space enthusiastic people in the TweetUp tent. Our spirits and hopes are high that the weather situation improves and we will be able to launch Atlantis on time. It is quite an experience to have communicated with so many of these people on Twitter and now to be sitting in the sane tent with them and experiencing the very last shuttle launch is both very rewarding and a little sad to know that a shuttle will never launch from here again.

The sun is starting to come up now at the press site and we are soon going to hear from some Astronaut veterans and a few of the many people who make a shuttle launch possible.

I’ll continue to update as my excitement allows!!

-Mark Clemente
@mtclemente