The Space Shuttle Program (apr 12, 1981 – jul 21, 2011)

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The Space Shuttle Program was a monumental period in space exploration history. Spanning 3 decades, the program had huge successes, as well as huge failures. The biggest change from the Apollo mission to the Space Shuttle program was the way astronauts launched to and returned from space. The Shuttle program used extremely large capsules shaped like airplanes, strapped to an external tank (the big red one, containing liquid fuel) and two solid rocket boosters to get to space (the two white ones). The spacecraft had a very large cargo bay, which allowed for the transport of a string of space laboratories, the Hubble Space Telescope, and International Space Station(ISS) modules. The Canadarm was used frequently to help move payloads, and astronauts on spacewalks (also known as EVA).

The STS (Space Transport System) missions, along with some Soyuz missions, had the primary task of constructing a permanent living structure in Earth's orbit . This was carried out by sending laboratories on shuttles and testing their capabilities in Space. Some of these included Mir(the Russian lab, now defunct), and the ISS which has had a continuous human presence for 20 years.

The Shuttle program had a family of six Shuttles. The first, Enterprise, named after the Star Trek ship, is less well know as it never flew in space, but was very cool because it was flown on the back of a Boeing 747. The next five, Columbia, Challenger, Discovery, Atlantis, and Endeavour, did all of the 135 STS missions to Space. Unfortunately, two Shuttles were destroyed in accidents resulting in the death all members, 7 on each Shuttle.

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