A Barnes and Noble Best Gift Book of 2022 A Publishers Weekly Holiday Gift Guide 2022 selection6 orbiters, 140 missions, 355 astronauts, 500,000,000 miles - all in one rich and beautiful photographic journey The Space Shuttle tells the story of Nasa's amazing Space Shuttle program and its 140 space flights (135 missions, plus five Approach and Landing Tests) in a uniquely designed and covetable way. Long before the James Webb Telescope rekindled our fascination with astronomy and our place in the cosmos, the Space Shuttle began to capture the world's attention with its first mission (a test launch) on April 12, 1981 and continued to do so until its final mission on July 8, 2011. The program's six orbiter vehicles are Enterprise, Columbia, Challenger, Discovery, Atlantis, and Endeavour. Each mission has its own fascinating story, and The Space Shuttle retells these stories, in chronological order, through incredible photos taken by Nasa photojournalists, fine art photographers, and the astronauts themselves. Each image is accompanied by a short text that includes quick facts such as crew members, launch date, and landing date, as well as a short overview of highlights and purpose. For example, Sts-78's mission was to study circadian rhythms in space, Sts-41G's mission was to take photographs.