With the Chronicle writing about U.S. and Russian cooperative efforts in space, I thought it might be a good idea to put this into perspective by showing readers just how many space flights each country has flown. On the U.S. side — the blue dots — you can see things ramp up in the 1980s and 1990s. With significant drop-offs in 1986-87 and 20003-04 — after NASA lost the shuttles Challenger and Columbia, respectively. NASA’s shuttle fleet was retired in 2011, which is why you see no more blue dots after that. Nowadays, the U.S. pays Russia to ferry its astronauts to the International Space Station.
APRIL 7, 2019
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