Astronauts pack up -- a busload's worth

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. -- The astronauts making NASA's last shuttle flight gave up their off-duty time yesterday and finished packing up their gigantic suitcase for the ride home.

The 10 space travelers cheered as they put the final items in Raffaello, the Italian-made cargo canister that's the size of a bus. More than 5,600 pounds of old space station equipment, packing foam and other trash will return to Earth this week inside Raffaello. Everything is neatly packed and stacked, even if it is junk.

"We're full," reported astronaut Sandra Magnus. "Everybody pitched in."

The compartment was to be moved from the International Space Station back onto space shuttle Atlantis early today. It carried up to 9,400 pounds of food, clothes and other household goods -- a year's worth of supplies.

Atlantis will undock from the space station Tuesday, after a visit of more than a week, and aim for a Thursday landing back in Florida to end 30 years of shuttle flight.

In a departure from last week's string of celebrity greetings, yesterday's special message to the crew aboard Atlantis came from workers at NASA's Stennis Space Center near New Orleans. That's where the shuttle main engines were tested over the decades.

"It's time to fire up your engines -- laissez les bon temps rouler!" the Stennis crowd shouted, using the Cajun expression for "Let the good times roll." The wake-up music was Kool and the Gang's 1980 hit "Celebration," chosen by the shuttle crew before the flight.