Born in 1968 at the height of the Apollo program, the Space Shuttle was designed to fulfill two basic roles in NASA post-Apollo manned flight objectives. The first goal of the Space Shuttle program was to provide NASA with an efficient, re-usable method of carrying astronauts to and from a permanently manned space station. At the time, NASA envisioned a space station which would be staffed by 12 to 24 people. The space station was intended to assure a permanent manned U.S. presence in space following the Apollo lunar landings. The space station would support scientific research objectives, plus act as an engineering and support base for manned journeys to the planets. In addition, NASA believe

The design of the space shuttle was created by Rockwell and McDonnell Douglas in 1971. The space shuttle itself is combination of rocket, airplane, and spacecraft. This is how the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) describes the space shuttle: #“It takes off as a rocket, orbits the Earth as a spacecraft, and lands on the ground as an airplane.” Building a vehicle to do any of those jobs is hard enough, but combining them into one vehicle is truly remarkable.

No one can say exactly which direction the Space Shuttle program will take in the 21st Century. But, if NASA is able to implement all of its Space Shuttle Upgrade Program, there is a chance that at the end of the Space Shuttle program, the vehicle may look and perform like it was originally intended to when the program began in the late 1960's.With rising costs and recent budget cuts who knows if their will even be a space shuttle program in the future. Perhaps all hopes for the space shuttle program will be abandoned and replaced with another means to get into outer space.

The Space Shuttle Program has built a total of five shuttles: Columbia, Discovery, Endeavor, Atlantis, and Challenger. There have been many missions to and from space using the shuttles. Currently only three shuttles remain since the tragedy of Challenger and Columbia. Challenger was one of the ships in the program that was supposed to go to outer space but was destroyed in an explosion 73 seconds after takeoff on January 28th, 1986, with a loss of all seven of its crew. One of the crew members was Christa McAuliffe, she was supposed to be the first teacher in space but never made it. On February 8, 2003, the shuttle Columbia burned up while attempting to land back on Earth. Scientist blame an estimated 2.7-pound chunk of insulating foam, perhaps combined with ice, that came loose from the main external fuel tank and struck the underside of the shuttle's left wing near the wheel well during take off.

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