CNN PRODUCER NOTE     MrDemil, of Rockledge, Florida, shot these pictures from the air traffic control tower in the shuttle landing facility at the Kennedy Space Center. 'For me it was exciting you know, I was fairly new here at the Kennedy Space Center, so I've only been here two years,' he says. 'It was an exciting moment, a beautiful morning. It was a perfect morning for it to take off.' He says for many of his friends and colleagues, it was a very emotional and tough moment as they had worked so closely with Discovery. In regard to the shuttle program, he says he is hopeful. 'You know, there's a good plan out there. Unfortunately there's a gap now between the shuttle and the other progams...If politics and budget constraints don't get in the way, we have exciting stuff - heavy lifting, the commercial program, crew capsule, a lot of exciting things going on,' he says. 'People think that the space program is dead, but that's not true. We just need the budget to keep us moving forward at that pace.'
- ssesha, CNN iReport producer