Marshall Space Flight Center previous Spacelab missions were operated. The advent of the Space Shuttle made possible several major space programs in which MSFC had significant responsibilities. These were the International Space Station, the Hubble Space Telescope, the Chandra X-Ray Observatory, and the Compton Gamma-Ray Observatory. The latter three are part of NASA's series of Great Observatories; this series also includes the Spitzer Space Telescope, but this was not launched by a Space Shuttle and MSFC had no significant role in its development. A manned space station had long been in the plans of visionaries. Wernhar von Braun, in his widely read "Collier's Magazine"
Space Shuttle crew members to the ISS, to stay docked for 180 days, and then return them back to Earth. These spacecraft were to become operational in the 2010s. Space Shuttles have been features of fiction and nonfiction, from children's movies to documentaries. Early examples include the 1979 "James Bond" film, "Moonraker", the 1982 Activision videogame "Space Shuttle: A Journey into Space" (1982) and G. Harry Stine's 1981 novel "Shuttle Down". In the 1986 film "SpaceCamp", "Atlantis" accidentally launches into space with a group of U.S. Space Camp participants as its crew. A space shuttle named "Intrepid" is featured in the 1989