Question: How long did the Space Shuttle program last?
About the article "NASA", section "Space Shuttle program (1972–2011)".

Candidate passages:
In the 1980s and 1990s, one of the planned successors to STS was called "Shuttle II".
At one point before retirement, extension of the Space Shuttle program for an additional five years while a replacement can be developed, was considered by the U.S. government.
For comparison to an earlier retirement, when the Saturn IB was last flown in 1975 for the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project, the Shuttle development program was already well underway.
However, the Shuttle did not fly until 1981, which left a six-year gap in U.S. manned spaceflight.
Because of this and other reasons, the U.S. space station Skylab burned up in the atmosphere. 
NASA retired the Space Shuttle in 2011, after 30 years of service.
The Shuttle was originally conceived of and presented to the public as a "Space Truck", which would, among other things, be used to build a United States space station in low earth orbit in the early 1990s.
When the US space station evolved into the International Space Station project, which suffered from long delays and design changes before it could be completed, the service life of the Space Shuttle was extended several times until 2011, serving at least 15 years longer than it was originally designed to do.
"Discovery" was the first of NASA's three remaining operational Space Shuttles to be retired.
The final Space Shuttle mission was originally scheduled for late 2010, but the program was later extended to July 2011 when Michael Suffredini of the ISS program said that one additional trip was needed in 2011 to deliver parts to the International Space Station.
The Shuttle's final mission consisted of just four astronauts—Christopher Ferguson (Commander), Douglas Hurley (Pilot), Sandra Magnus (Mission Specialist 1), and Rex Walheim (Mission Specialist 2); they conducted the 135th and last space Shuttle mission on board "Atlantis", which launched on July 8, 2011, and landed safely at the Kennedy Space Center on July 21, 2011, at 5:57 AM EDT (09:57 UTC). 
The retirement of NASA's Space Shuttle fleet took place from March to July 2011.
"Discovery" was the first of the three active space shuttles to be retired, completing its final mission on March 9, 2011; "Space Shuttle Endeavour" did so on June 1.
The final shuttle mission was completed with the landing of "Atlantis" on July 21, 2011, bringing about the end of the 30-year Space Shuttle program.
The Shuttle was originally conceived of and presented to the public in 1972 as a 'Space Truck' which would, among other things, be used to build a United States space station in low earth orbit in the early-1990s and then be replaced by a new vehicle.
When the concept of the U.S. space station evolved into that of the International Space Station, which suffered from long delays and design changes before it could be completed, the service life of the Space Shuttle was extended several times until 2011 when it was finally retired.
In 2010 the Shuttle was formally scheduled for retirement with "Atlantis" being taken out of service first after STS-132 in May of that year, but the program was once again extended when the two final planned missions were delayed until 2011.
Later, one additional mission was added for "Atlantis" for July 2011, extending the program further.
Counter-proposals to the shuttle's retirement were considered by Congress and the prime contractor United Space Alliance as late as spring 2010.
Hardware developed for the Space Shuttle met various ends with conclusion of the program, including donation, disuse and/or disposal, or reuse.
An example of reuse, is that one of the three Multi-Purpose Logistics Module (MPLM) was converted to a permanent module for the International Space Station. 
 The Space Shuttle Era: 1981–2011; interactive multimedia on the space shuttle orbiters NASA Human Spaceflight – Shuttle: Current status of shuttle missions Official NASA Human Space Flight Orbital Tracking system NASA Shuttle Gallery: Newer images, audio, and video of the space shuttle program Older images of the space shuttle program NASA History Series Publications (many of which are on-line)  
During the last years of the Soviet space program, the An-225 was employed as the prime method of transporting the Buran Shuttle.