Space Shuttle Facts

Fun Facts about the Space Shuttle

  1. The space shuttle was officially called the Space Transportation System (STS) and all of its missions began with the letters “STS”.

  2. The shuttle was the world's first reusable spacecraft to carry humans into space.

  3. 135 missions flew on the space shuttles from the first successful flight in 1981 to its final flight launched on July 8, 2011.

  4. The first space shuttle prototype was the Enterprise, although it never flew in space. It was used in the 1977 Approach and Landing Test (ALT) program to test its free-flight and landing capabilities. The Enterprise was launched from a modified 747 airliner.

  5. The space shuttle itself was actually a combination of three parts. The orbiter vehicle (OV), twin solid rocket boosters (SRBs), and a giant external fuel tank (ET). The orbiter (more commonly known as the space shuttle) was the only part that flew in space.

  6. The total cost of the shuttle program from 1981 to 2011 was $113.7 billion. (Adjusted for inflation that would be almost $140 billion.)

  7. Although the space shuttle Columbia disintegrated upon re-entry due to heat shield damage and its seven-astronaut crew tragically perished in 2003, there were survivors. The nematode worms C. elegans, carried aboard Columbia as part of an experiment to study their growth and reproductive behavior, were discovered alive. Descendants of the nematodes were subjects in experiments on later shuttle flights.

  8. The first American woman in space, Sally Ride, and the first black astronaut in space, Guion Bluford, both flew space shuttle missions.

  9. Scientist and physician F. Story Musgrave is the only astronaut to have flown on all five space shuttles.

  10. Prohibitive costs, slow turnaround time to launch, few paying customers, and continued safety problems all contributed to the retirement of the space shuttle program.