Space Shuttle History
Nasa s space shuttle program officially began in 1972 but its roots go all the way back to a nazi concept vehicle from the 1930s.
Space shuttle history. Columbia performed well and the other shuttles soon made several successful flights. From its home base in cape canaveral florida a fleet of shuttles has carried mankind into space. On april 12 1981 the space shuttle launched for the first time and was piloted by john young and robert crippen.
The first flight was in 1981 with the space shuttle columbia piloted by astronauts john young and robert crippen. National aeronautics and space administration nasa. The first space shuttle mission sts 1 would be the first time nasa performed a crewed first flight of a spacecraft.
Rich orloff has scanned and formatted press kits for all the shuttle flights except for dedicated dod missions space shuttle fact sheet. Four shuttles were made columbia discovery atlantis challenger. Space shuttle also called space transportation system partially reusable rocket launched vehicle designed to go into orbit around earth to transport people and cargo to and from orbiting spacecraft and to glide to a runway landing on its return to earth s surface that was developed by the u s.
For over two decades the space shuttle has been the flagship of america s space program. In 1986 the shuttle challenger exploded in flight and the entire crew was lost.