It's lift off for the space shuttle Atlantis...The crew heading to the international space station for the last mission of the year,Fox's Craig Boswell picks up the story from the Kennedy space center.It's the final launch of the year... And *one* of the last for the space shuttle program.Atlantis rocketing off into space... Heading to the international space station..."Liftoff" engines firing/shuttle taking off "kicking off their work week with a Monday commute to orbit.The shuttle crew will embark on three spacewalks...They will also deliver *30-thousand pounds* of spare parts to the space station....so it will have the supplies it needs to function after the shuttle fleet is retired next year.Jones says: "these are long spares for the station that won't be able to be shipped up after the shuttle retires, they're just too big and bulky, so they're going to store them in place on the space station."On the ground, about one-hundred space fans taking part in Nasa's first "tweet-up"...Reporting the launch on twitter as the shuttle blasts into orbit.Ratterman says: "We saw the first Columbia launch 30 yrs ago, and that's why I'm here...I mean to twitter too, but..it's just, I wanted to see one of the last ones before they stopped the program."But the future of u-s manned space flight is still in question.Originally the Ares 1 launch vehicle and the Orion capsule were expected to take the reins for the aging shuttle program.But a report released last month by the Augustine commission -- a panel convened by the Obama administration on the U.S. human space flight plans -- says Nasa suffers from a severe lack of funding...The committee estimates there will be a gap of at least *seven years* between the shuttle program retirement in twenty-ten...And when a new vehicle is available to launch the next u.s. Manned space mission.As the Kennedy space center, Craig Boswell, fox news.The astronauts will spend thanksgiving in orbit.The final part of their mission, bringing home an astronaut who has been living in the space station for more than two months.