as we made suborbital and/or by all the flight 52 years after kitty hawk. mercury and gemini developed our abilities followed by apollo and neil armstrong's never to be forgotten first-ever footprints on some place other than earth. we transitioned from apollo to a new vehicle, the space shuttle which was intended to broaden opportunities for orbital activities and it certainly did. space shuttle "discovery" is the star. i want has the most extensive record of all the shuttle free-throw shooter. it's 39 missions included a whole bunch of things but it became a science platform for nine flights, a satellite launcher for 12 flights, a telescope repair station, which charlie already mentioned and he was the commander of putting it up there on "discovery" that has literally rewritten the astronomy books for all time. and also served as a plain flat out truck. it was the first space station delivery truck 13 flights it made to put together the space station that goes over us even today. "discovery" was truly a heavy hauler in construction of the international sp