Astronaut-politician member of Congress to travel into space aboard Space Shuttle Columbia's STS-61-C mission, also as a payload specialist. In 2012, shuttle astronaut José M. Hernández ran for Congress in California's 10th District, he won the Democratic nomination, but lost to incumbent Jeff Denham. Canadian astronaut Marc Garneau became the first Canadian in space, when he flew in 1984 on the Space Shuttle Challenger on mission STS-41-G as a payload specialist. After two other shuttle flights, Garneau entered politics and won a seat to the Parliament of Canada in 2008. Garneau was appointed as Minister of transport by Prime minister Justin
Space Shuttle retirement to 2028 or beyond. Until another U.S. crew vehicle is ready, crews will access the ISS exclusively aboard the Russian Soyuz spacecraft. The Soyuz was chosen as the ISS lifeboat during the development of the International Space Station, and has been one of the space taxis used by the international participants to this program. A Soyuz took Expedition 1, which included one U.S. astronaut in the year 2000. Previously the United States and Russia had collaborated on extended the Mir space station with the Shuttle-Mir program in the 1990s. Although the Orion spacecraft is oriented towards deep-space missions such as