Copper-nickel coin, the reverse of which depicts the Space Shuttle.  The Columbia is NASA's first shuttle to make a space flight. It was named after the Boston-based sailing ship Columbia, commanded by Robert Gray, the first American ship to circumnavigate the globe in the late 18th century. The name also commemorates Columbia, the Apollo 11 command module. On 1 February 2003, while returning from space, the shuttle was destroyed by a damaged heat shield. During the entry into the atmosphere in the last minutes of the mission, it turned out that the damage was fatal - the whole crew, 7 astronauts, died in the crash. This caused the suspension of further flights of NASA shuttles until the launch of the shuttle Discovery on 26 July 2005 in the STS-114 mission.