Faster than sound.

With just thirty-one seconds on the count, Atlantis, the last space shuttle on its last trip, was delayed. Somewhere in all the millions of parts something was not as perfect as its design. Some piece, shaped by thousands of minds out of decades of discontent. Murmurs passed through radios into the air. They saw that it was not the shuttle itself, but the cap at the top of the pad that was not yet fully withdrawn for launch. This hood that balanced as a vent over the giant external fuel tank, the central part of a shuttle. The delay was not for Atlantis itself but for the structure that was built to send it along. On an unseen man's mark, the count continued down. And then the ship burst off into the big blue, millions of pounds at a mile a second.