Plans were well underway to launch the Space Shuttle at Vandenberg in the early 1980s. The shuttle was what a rocket could never be: A flying aircraft with a human pilot. The insulting phrase for ...

Endeavour, the fifth and final space shuttle was created after the space ... 6, just two days after launch, the astronauts mated Zarya with Unity, a connecting module built in the United States.

It was the second, the Columbia, that had the honor of being the first space shuttle to launch into orbit. It blasted off on April 12, 1981, exactly two decades after Yuri Gagarin became the first ...

Shuttle flights had become fairly routine at this point. But this mission would be the last successful mission before the disastrous launch of Space Shuttle Challenger just a few days after ...

Bill Nelson (now outgoing NASA administrator) and six additional astronauts launched aboard Space Shuttle Columbia on STS 61C. Shuttle flights had become fairly routine at this point. But this mission ...