We've seen some pretty cool photos of shuttle launches from airliners, but this NASA training plane was able to get much closer than a commercial plane.

Space.com reports: In the aerial views, Atlantis and its impressive exhaust plume were captured through the window of the agency's Shuttle Training Aircraft. These modified Gulfstream jets are used by astronauts to practice landing the space shuttle. The aircraft's controls are modified to simulate the orbiter's handling on the sharply angled descent that it makes on approach.

  Full coverage.

Dick Clark, NASA via AP

In this photo provided by NASA, space shuttle Atlantis is seen through the window of a Shuttle Training Aircraft as it lifts off from the Kennedy Space Center Friday, July 8, in Cape Canaveral, Fla. Atlantis is the 135th and final space shuttle launch for NASA.

Dick Clark, NASA via EPA

The exhaust plume from space shuttle Atlantis is seen through the window of a Shuttle Training Aircraft (STA) as it launches from launch pad 39A at the Kennedy Space Center on the STS-135 mission, in Cape Canaveral, Fla., USA, July 8. Atlantis launched on the final flight of the shuttle program on a 12-day mission to the International Space Station. The STS-135 crew will deliver the Raffaello multipurpose logistics module containing supplies and spare parts for the space station.

Scott Andrews / for msnbc.com

In one of 120,000 images shot during the time-lapse, NASA's space shuttle Atlantis is hoisted before being mounted with "the stack" before rollout at Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

As the sun sets on NASA's spaceflight program, three talented people set out to document the preparations for shuttle Atlantis' final launch.

Armed with 15 cameras, Scott Andrews, his son Philip Andrews and Stan Jirman teamed up to shoot and seamlessly combine a whopping 120,000 still images. The finished product is condensed into a 3-minute time-lapse video that makes the four-day process of preparing the shuttle for its trek to the launch pad look like a cakewalk.

The time-lapse is the culmination of 40 years of collaboration. Photographer Scott Andrews, a technical consultant for Canon, has been photographing launches and landings professionally since Apollo 15 in July 1971.

Scott Andrews / for msnbc.com

The morning after rollout, NASA's space shuttle Atlantis rests on the launch pad at Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

Throughout the years he has helped hundreds of photographers from around the world and worked closely with the NASA spaceflight program. Scott said his main mission in creating the time-lapse is to pay tribute to all of the shuttle workers.

Referring to the origins of the time-lapse video, Scott said "Anybody could have done this time lapse — but nobody did."

So Scott sat down and drafted a 47-page proposal and made six trips to the Kennedy Space Center to finally get the "yes" he needed. This all hinged on the trust he had built during his tenure, split between Kennedy and Johnson space centers.

In the end, they produced a tribute to not only the shuttle workers, but also NASA and the spaceflight program as a whole.

Veteran NBC space correspondent Jay Barbree summed it up best: "When historians look back, they will write that the shuttle was a reusable ship that carried astronauts into orbit.  It was an essential brick on the road to distant places beyond our planet."

Related content:

• Slideshow: The life of shuttle Atlantis
• Video: Space shuttle crew: 'We want to make sure we go out in style'
• Slideshow: Month in Space Pictures
• More space news from msnbc.com

Roberto Beltramini / Space 3D

A 3-D view created from NASA imagery shows the space shuttle Endeavour docked to the International Space Station during that shuttle's last mission in May.

How can you possibly improve upon the ultimate pictures of the space shuttle and the International Space Station together in orbit? By turning them into 3-D photos, of course.

That's what Italian amateur astronomer Roberto Beltramini did with the imagery captured in May by his countryman, astronaut Paolo Nespoli. The "ultimate" opportunity presented itself when Nespoli and two other spacefliers were leaving the space station to come back home during the shuttle Endeavour's final orbital tour. Nespoli shot high-definition stills and video from the departing Soyuz spacecraft, and the fruits of his labors were made public last month.

Beltramini took pairs of slightly offset images and tweaked them to produce these stereo views, displayed on his Space 3D gallery and republished with permission.

Roberto Beltramini / Space 3D

In this view, you can make out Endeavour's robotic arm curling around the shuttle. Red-blue glasses are required for the 3-D effect.

Roberto Beltramini / Space 3D

A different perspective shows Endeavour's rear end, head-on.

These are perspectives we'll never see again — not even during Atlantis' program-ending visit to the space station this month. It was a scheduling fluke that a Soyuz craft happened to be leaving the station while Endeavour was docked, and the circumstance is virtually certain not to be repeated.

We just might see Atlantis and the station linked together from a different perspective, however. Photographers such as France's Thierry Legault are getting better and better at snapping amazing pictures of the station-shuttle complex from Earth, and during Atlantis' mission, you'll want to check Legault's website as well as Patrick Vantuyne's 3-D photo gallery.

Update for 9:40 p.m. ET: You'll need red-blue glasses to get the full 3-D effect from the pictures offered by Beltramini and Vantuyne. I'm in the process of sending out 3-D specs to at least a dozen (and probably more) members of the Cosmic Log Facebook community as part of our occasional "3-D Giveaway" program. To join the community, all you have to do is click the "Like" button on the Facebook page. The glasses are being provided courtesy of Microsoft Research. (Msnbc.com is a joint venture of Microsoft and NBC Universal.) If you're one of today's winners, congrats: I'll start sending out the glasses after Atlantis lifts off.

More 3-D views from space:

• Explore the 3-D depths of Mars
• Get a fresh 3-D look at Phobos
• See a Martian crater in 3-D
• See a Martian milestone in 3-D
• See the Martian arctic in 3-D
• See more depths of Mars in 3-D
• 3-D delights from Mars
• Still more from Mars in 3-D
• Go on a space mission in 3-D
• See the moon's marvels in 3-D
• Saturn's moons in 3-D
• More from outer space in 3-D
• Fly through a nebula in 3-D
• Cosmic Log's 3-D-O-Rama

Connect with the Cosmic Log community by "liking" the log's Facebook page or following @b0yle on Twitter. You can also check out "The Case for Pluto," my book about the controversial dwarf planet and the search for new worlds. 

DigitalGlobe

The space shuttle Atlantis is visible near the center of this DigitalGlobe satellite image, focusing on the heart of NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The large structure toward the left is the 52-story-tall Vehicle Assembly Building, where the shuttle was being taken in preparation for flight. The building just to the left of the VAB is the Launch Control Center. The buildings at top center are orbiter processing facilities, the "garages" where the space shuttles are kept.

This picture turns the tables on the space shuttle Atlantis: Usually, the orbiter gets great views of Earth from space. Here, a satellite in space gets a great view of the orbiter on Earth. It's even more amazing when you realize that DigitalGlobe's satellte happened to be passing over Kennedy Space Center at midday on Tuesday, at just the time when NASA was moving Atlantis over from its orbiter processing facility to the 52-story-tall Vehicle Assembly Building.

Atlantis is now being mated with its external fuel tank and solid rocket boosters inside the VAB, in preparation for NASA's final space shuttle mission. Right now the launch is scheduled to take place in mid-July. Check out this preview story to learn more about Atlantis' "rollover" and the STS-135 mission ahead. And for a ground-level view of the rollover, check out this picture and the others available from Kennedy Space Center's media archive:

NASA

The shuttle Atlantis is parked in front of the Vehicle Assembly Building on Tuesday before being moved inside.

More about the shuttle fleet's last days:

• Shuttle Endeavour lifts off for the last time
• Video: Watching Atlantis' latest launch
• Awesome photo of Endeavour snapped from airplane
• Up, up and away ... to see the shuttle Endeavour

Tip o' the Log to Ian O'Neill at Discovery News.

Connect with the Cosmic Log community by "liking" the log's Facebook page or following @b0yle on Twitter. You can also check out "The Case for Pluto," Alan's book about the controversial dwarf planet and the search for new worlds.