Bob Crippen, who flew the first space shuttle mission in 1981, says it will be a long time before we see another spacecraft as 'magnificent' as the shuttle. Video via NASA. CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla.

It's not quite the achievement of a lunar landing, but astronaut Mike Massimino made Twitter history with a 139-character post to the micro-blogging site -- the first person to do so from space. "From orbit: Launch was awesome!

Back on April 12, 1981, the space shuttle roared to life for the first time. Columbia lifted off from Kennedy Space Center carrying two astronauts – a moonwalker, John Young, and a rookie, Bob ...

As of today, NASA said, the space shuttle Discovery has gone 5,830 times around the earth, flown 148 milion miles and spent 365 days in space since its first launch in 1984. No other ship has gone ...

Although NASA began early studies of space shuttle designs even before the Apollo 11 moon landing in 1969, the shuttle program wasn't formally launched until January 5,1972, when President Nixon ...

Columbia’s first landing on April 14, 1981, drew 225,000 fans to Edwards Air Force Base. The crowd size overwhelmed the base police and facilities. For the next landing, Edwards was ready. In a ...