July 21, 1969, Neil Armstrong and Edwin “Buzz” Aldrin Jr. became the first human beings to walk on the surface of another world. Forty-two years later, on July 21, 2011, the last operational space shuttle ended it’s final mission. As of today, NASA no longer has any in-house manned spaceflight capability, and will be relying on the Russian Soyuz vehicle to send crews to the ISS until the SpaceX Dragon (which will remain privately owned) enters service.
