In 1972, Apollo 17 carried the last batch of astronauts to the lunar surface. But during that same year, NASA was already beginning the design and develop their next generation of crew-carrying craft. Nearly a decade later, the Space Shuttle was born.
The Space Shuttle Program eventually flew 135 missions, making it the core of American crewed spaceflight efforts for nearly four decades. The first orbital test flight, STS-1, carried out by Space Shuttle Columbia, blasted off April 12, 1981 from historic launchpad 39A at Kennedy Space Center. More than 30 years later, when Space Shuttle Atlantis rolled to a stop on the runway July 21, 2011, the shuttle program officially came to a close.
After the end of shuttle era, American astronauts were forced to pay for rides aboard Russian rockets — a situation many found galling. But that’s not the case anymore.
On May 30, 2020, NASA astronauts Doug Hurley and Robert Behnken launched to the International Space Station (ISS) aboard a SpaceX Crew Dragon spacecraft, marking the first crewed spaceflight launched from American soil since NASA retired the Space Shuttle. And in just a few short days (on November 14), NASA plans to launch the first official mission, Crew-1, of their Commercial Crew Program.
