Hundreds of birds scatter as the typical quiet reverie of their day is temporarily broken by the roar of a Space Shuttle surging off the pad. The orbiter Atlantis returned to space after an approximately two-year absence with a liftoff from Launch Pad 39B at 11:59:43 a.m. EST. Primary payloads for the last Shuttle flight of 1994 include the Atmospheric Laboratory for Applications and Science and the German-built Cryogenic Infrared Spectrometers and Telescopes for the Atmosphere-Shuttle Pallet Satellite.