What seemed a radical concept in the late 1960's and early 1970's grew into the country's most successful space program as the shuttle took flight. Instead of small, disposable, used only one time spacecraft such as Gemini and Apollo, the shuttle would land on conventional runways and live to be used hundreds of time, in theory. Six orbiters would be built and all but the first would fly a portion of the 135 total missions carried out over a thirty year period between 1981 and 2001. Tragically, two were lost to accidents. Challenger and Columbia were destroyed due to structural problems that in each case were remedied before shuttle flight was resumed. Nevertheless, the shuttle program was an overwhelming success. The enormous payload bay and articulated boom allowed our astronauts to perform tasks in space that once were only dreams of project engineers. Over the years the fleet carried aloft the components for the space station, the Spacelab, Hubble telescope, numerous satellites, and delivered an astounding 3.5 million pounds of supplies into orbit. Over its thirty plus year history, the shuttle fleet traveled 542,398,878 miles while totaling 21,152 orbits during its 135 total missions, carrying 355 humans into space. Although no longer operational, the platform the shuttle provided for the advance of human knowledge and astronomical enlightenment will benefit mankind for decades to come.
Inducted in 2012.
Portrait Location: Hall of Fame Hallway

Induction Video