Farewell to the Space Shuttle

1. You can skip the health club today because just walking outside will feel as if you’re in a steam room. Expect partly cloudy skies with a high around 93 degrees, lots of humidity and a 40 percent chance of rain from the afternoon through the night, according to the National Weather Service. Severe thunderstorms are possible in the late afternoon and evening. The overnight low will be about 71.

2. The Cobb County Citizens Oversight Committee last week recommended saving money in the library system by buying fewer books and magazines. If you like having books in your library, however, you can show your support by going to the at 266 Roswell St. today or Saturday and shopping at Cobb Friends of the Library’s special book sale. Items start at $1, and all proceeds will supplement the library materials budget. The sale runs from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.

3. Summer school comes to a dramatic end tonight for Cobb County seniors when the school district holds its summer graduation ceremony at at 7:30.

4. Return to Marietta Patch today for the story of John Fite, who has retired to a second career producing pottery and teaching the craft to others at . That Artists Among Us article should be available at 10 a.m.

5. Weather permitting, the final space shuttle mission will begin this morning at 11:26, although forecasts indicate the launch of Atlantis will be postponed. Baby boomers have the Apollo moon missions as their space program, but those of us from the baby-bust generation barely remember Apollo if at all. Instead, we grew up with the space shuttle, from the test glide of Enterprise to the triumph of Columbia’s first flight in 1981, through the sorrow of the Challenger launch explosion in 1986 and the Columbia re-entry disaster in 2003, and now the final years of servicing the space station while NASA tries to decide what’s next. Martin Marietta and, after the merger, Lockheed Martin played a big role in the shuttle program, most prominently building the external fuel tanks, as a couple of company retirees recall in this video from New Orleans’ Times-Picayune.