An historical overview of NASA manned spacecraft and their crew stations

The first generation of manned spacecraft demonstrated all the types of mission activity planned for the future. Development of these spacecraft and execution of their missions have provided the experience base for the design of current and future spacecraft systems. This paper summarizes the crew station characteristics of the Mercury, Gemini, Apollo, Skylab, Apollo-Soyuz and Space Shuttle spacecraft and the design strategies that dictated those characteristics. Also included are some comparisons with current and planned spacecraft and an assessment of the lessons learned as they might be applied in future spacecraft designs.