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First reusable manned orbital spacecraft (1981)

Reusable orbital manned spacecraft is a long term for what is known generally as a Space Shuttle.

NASA’s space shuttles were intended for use in Earth orbit and not as transport to other planets.

The space shuttles looked like large airplanes with wings and tail section for good reason,

because unlike traditional cylindrical space rockets,

space shuttles were designed to launch into space with their accessory fuel tanks and rocket boosters,

and then glide down to Earth to land with wheels on a runway just like an airplane.

Although the orbiter itself was reusable, the huge fuel tanks were not, so those were disposed of during flight,

where they would burn up passing through Earth’s atmosphere. The solid rocket boosters were released from the orbiter,

but were dropped by parachute into Atlantic Ocean, to be recovered by ocean going ships and brought back to the USA for repair and reuse.

The very first space shuttle was the Columbia, which launched into space in April of 1982, from Florida.

The first mission had a crew of two, but later missions carried as many as eight people.

In total, space shuttle missions carried some 600 crew members from countries all over the world.

There were at one time six space shuttles in operation, the Columbia, Challenger, Discovery, Atlantis, Endeavor and Enterprise.

The space shuttle were used for many purposes, including research, launching satellites,

ferrying crew and supplies to and from space stations, repair operations, deploying and maintaining the Hubble space telescope,

assisting in the construction of the ISS (or International Space Station), secret US military operations, and diplomatic purposes.

Canada had a very important role in the space shuttle missions as the developer of the Canadarm,

a large robotic arm which was mounted in the body of the orbiter and used for 30 years to assist in the shuttle missions.

The original shuttle, Columbia, flew 28 missions before it exploded above Texas during re-entry operations in 2003,

killing seven astronauts and shocking the world. The disaster was investigated, and changes in procedure were put in place.

The US space shuttle program was retired in 2011.

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