Shuttle Endeavour heads to the International Space Station

Space shuttle Endeavour blasted into orbit early this morning in what was expected to be the last time a space shuttle turns night into day.

The clouds that stopped Endeavour Sunday were no match for her today.

"It broke out of those clouds, and I was able to see it all the way up to seven minutes of flight off Cape Hatteras. So for the last night launch, it treated us well," launch director Mike Leinbach observed.

With the White House abandoning new rockets and a return to the moon, Endeavour's six astronauts are the lucky ones. With 94 of them at NASA and only Russian rockets to ride after the shuttles are gone late this year, many astronauts won't get the chance to fly.

Still, with the final module, Tranquility, and its bay windows for spectacular earth views headed to station, NASA is putting on its best face.

"Every launch is a little bittersweet, we're one closer to the end, this one is a really amazing one because it is that final pressurized element going up to station itself. It's the home of all the life support systems which really is a great test bed to show what its going to be like to go explore and keep going," NASA"s Mike Moses offered.

While President Obama cut the Ares rockets and Orion spacecraft that was supposed to follow shuttle, he did budget to keep the space station in operation six years longer, until 2020.

But it could be 20 years before NASA has any manned missions beyond earth orbit.

Only four more shuttle flights remain on the schedule.