Lockheed Martin Space Systems "Columbia" launched on January 12, 1986, Bob Cenker became RCA Astro-Electronic's first astronaut. Following the destruction of "Space Shuttle Challenger" with the next Shuttle mission, civilian Payload Specialists were excluded from flying Shuttle missions until 1990. By that time, RCA had been purchased by General Electric, and RCA Astro-Electronics became part of GE. As a result, Cenker was the only RCA Astro-Electronics employee, and only employee in the history of the facility under all of its subsequent names, to ever fly in space. The facility operated as GE Astro Space until it was sold to Martin Marietta in 1993. Then
Space Shuttle retirement for space access systems in the 1970s also, such as the Rockwell "Star-raker" Star-raker was a large single-stage to orbit design that used both rockets and ramjet for propulision. It was a contemporary to the Boeing "Reusable Aerodynamic Space Vehicle", which an all-rocket propulsion single-stage to orbit design. For comparison to an earlier retirement, when the Saturn IB was last flown in 1975 for the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project, the Shuttle development program was already well underway. However, the Shuttle did not fly until 1981, which left a six-year gap in U.S. manned spaceflight. Because of this and other reasons, in