The shuttle changed the face of America’s space program. For the program’s first two decades, every American astronaut was a white male. That changed in 1983. Over 30 years and 135 flights, the crews were a mixture of genders, ethnicities and nationalities.
1984
Bruce McCandless II and Robert L. Stewart make the first untethered spacewalk.
Kathyrn Sullivan becomes the first American woman to walk in space.
1992
Mark Lee and Jan Davis are the first married couple to fly on the same mission.
1994
Sergei Krikalev is the first Russian cosmonaut to fly on the shuttle.
1999
Eileen Collins, shown with her daughter, becomes the first woman to command a shuttle mission. In 1995, she became the first female shuttle pilot.
The crew
355 Flew aboard the five shuttles
306 Men
49 Women
23 Foreign citizens, representing 16 countries
