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 cost around $450 million. Roger A. Pielke, Jr. has estimated that the Space Shuttle program cost about US$170 billion (2008 dollars) through early 2008; the average cost per flight was about US$1.5 billion. Two missions were paid for by Germany, Spacelab D1 and D2 (D for "Deutschland") with a payload control center in Oberpfaffenhofen. D1 was the first time that control of a manned STS mission payload was not in U.S. hands. At times, the orbiter itself was referred to as the Space Shuttle. This was not technically correct as the "Space Shuttle" was the combination of the orbiter, the