 Eileen Collins was the first female Shuttle pilot, and with Shuttle mission STS-93 in July 1999 she became the first woman to command a US spacecraft.The United States continued missions to the ISS and other goals with the high-cost shuttle system, which was retired in 2011.The Soviet space program was the rocketry and space exploration program conducted by the Soviet Union from the 1930s till its collapse in 1991.