A Day in Astronomy: The End of NASA’s Space Shuttle Program

Posted on by onespaceman2000
Image (Credit): The first two space shuttle passengers – astronauts John W. Young, left, commander, and Robert L. Crippen, pilot, who flew on the space shuttle orbiter 102 Columbia for the first orbital flight test. (NASA)

On this day in 2011, NASA ended the space shuttle program after 30 years. The space shuttles took 852 passengers on 135 missions. The passengers included astronauts from the U.S. and 60 different countries.

The first space shuttle flight was on April 12, 1981 when Columbia launched from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. It was only a two day mission to test whether the shuttle system would work, but it set the stage for the 134 flights that followed.

Commenting later on NASA’s Artemis program, Mr. Crippen stated:

We do need to get out of Earth orbit. We need to go back to the Moon. It is the right thing to do. We need to learn to live and work off this planet. There are still some great things we can do on the Moon. And then, eventually fly on to Mars.

Go to this link for more about this first space shuttle mission.

Image (Credit): Mission patch for first space shuttle flight. (NASA)