About the size of a DC-9 commercial airliner, the shuttle is a high-tech, rocket -boosted space craft. The shuttle is launched vertically like any other rocket, using its own engines firing along with two attached solid rocket boosters that are jettisoned and recovered for re-use. While in orbit, the shuttle can use its own rocket motors for changes in direction. For re-entry, the shuttle turns around, brakes with its engines, and descends as a glider landing on special three-mile long runways in Florida or California like an airplane.

The shuttle was envisioned as a cheaper way to transport material and satellites into orbit for military, scientific, and large-scale commercial operations in space as well as the construction of a permanent space station. The concept of a craft with the characteristics of both a rocket and an airplane has roots in World War II. The Germans had...