In this handout photo provided by SpaceX, a Tesla roadster launched from the Falcon Heavy rocket ... [+] with a dummy driver named 'Starman' heads towards Mars. (Photo by SpaceX via Getty Images)

After a decade of incredible changes and achievements in space exploration, the Universe is back in fashion.

The 2010s did not start particularly well. In 2011, NASA retired its Space Shuttle program, and the U.S. relinquished its position as a space power capable of crewed spaceflight. Almost a decade later, you could say that nothings changed, except it has. Everything has changed. The U.S. is now on the cusp of a new era of quasi-commercial crewed spaceflight thanks to SpaceX and now Boeing. More globally, we can look back at the 2010s as a decade that saw the exploration of new worlds and new frontiers by the likes of NASA, Europes ESA, Japans JAXA and Chinas CNSA. It was a decade when crewed missions to Mars, and even Martian colonies, were openly discussed. Space caught the publics attention and imagination in a way not seen since Apollo.

Here are a just a few of the moments that contributed to, and benefitted from, a new-found lust for space exploration.

The decade started with a death. In 2011, NASAs space shuttle Atlantis took the programs last flight, but it got everyone asking a question: what happens next? It started to focus minds that had long since got tired of the same old missions to the International Space Station (ISS). The 33rd and final mission by space shuttle Atlantisbefore it was installed as a museum exhibit in Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complexin Floridabegun at 11:29 a.m. EDT on Friday, July 8, 2011 from NASA's Kennedy Space Center. This 135th shuttle mission (STS-135) lasted 12 days and landed on July 21. The U.S. still doesnt have a way to send astronauts to space from its own territory, and for now relies on Russia, but SpaceX and Boeing are about to change that. Despite delays, the U.S. getting its own launch capability back has been a constant source of public interest in space throughout the 2020s.

China's moon rover on the lunar surface.

Theres a decent chance that well look back at the first few decades of this century as being most notable for the emergence of China as the pre-eminent spacefaring nation of the 21st century. After becoming only the third country to launch astronauts into orbit in 2003, there followed a space station, a moon landing and, in the last decade, two Tiangong space stations and two successful Change missions to land on, and explore, the lunar surface. The most recent in 2019 was a daring trip to the moons far side that required a relay satellite in a very complicated halo orbit. It doesnt rush things, it doesnt make much noise about its plans, and its PR is terrible, but the China National Space Administration (CNSA) is going places next stop a lunar rock return by Change-5, a space station, a moon base and summer 2020s Huoxing mission to Mars.

If nothing else, the 2010s saw a billion people take an interest in space exploration for the first time.

There was one private company in the 2010s that was more responsible for the new interest in space exploration that any other. So much so that many in the U.S. appear to now think that NASA and SpaceX are in competition with each other.

It was all about money. In a bid to drive down costs and speed up flights, Elon Musks SpaceX experimented rocket boosters that could be re-used, thus saving money and making trips to space much cheaper. That meant landing boosters after the payload had gone into orbit. It worked, and as well as being a tremendous technical achievement, iconic views of boosters landing back on the launchpad was also a massive PR success for SpaceX. There were plenty of big moments for SpaceX. One was the sending of Musks own Tesla Roadsterdriven by a mannequin called Starman dressed in a spacesuitinto orbit of the Sun after a test flight of the Falcon Heavy in February 2018. Another was Elon Musks appearance on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert; he famously said Mars could be warmed up by dropping thermonuclear weapons over the poles of Mars. Musks Mars obsession stretched to headline-grabbing plans for Mars colonies and interplanetary transport systems. SpaceX ended the decade marred in controversy over the effect on astronomy of its Starlink mega-constellation of satellitesand all for a rather uninteresting broadband internet service. However, with Crew Dragon and Starship on the horizon, the 2020s are nevertheless a mouth-watering prospect for SpaceX fans ... and who isnt a SpaceX fan?

Did you watch the video? Eight years later it can still make the hairs on the back of your neck stand up. Landing on the red planet on August 6, 2012, NASA's Curiosity rover has been hunting for evidence of Mars' habitable past and has sent back some incredible photos of the Martian surfacein particular this huge 15,000-pixel-wide mosaic of Mount Sharp. However, its Curiositys arrival that has to rank up there with the great moments of space exploration.

In July 19, 2013, in an event celebrated the world over, NASA's Cassini spacecraft slipped into ... [+] Saturn's shadow and turned to image the planet, seven of its moons, its inner rings -- and, in the background, our home planet, Earth.With the sun's powerful and potentially damaging rays eclipsed by Saturn itself, Cassini's onboard cameras were able to take advantage of this unique viewing geometry. They acquired a panoramic mosaic of the Saturn system that allows scientists to see details in the rings and throughout the system as they are backlit by the sun. This mosaic is special as it marks the third time our home planet was imaged from the outer solar system; the second time it was imaged by Cassini from Saturn's orbit; and the first time ever that inhabitants of Earth were made aware in advance that their photo would be taken from such a great distance.

Although their scientific worth is incalculable, un-crewed robotic missions do tend to struggle to capture the publics imagination. Not so NASAs Cassini, which spent most of the 2010s sending back jaw-dropping images that reminded everyone why Saturn is our favourite planet apart from Earth. Cassini helped reveal a global ocean on Enceladus, an icy moon of Saturn, but publicity-wise its finest moment came when, in July 2013, it moved 750,000 miles behind Saturn with regard to the Sun, creating an eclipse (above) that included Earth 900 million miles away. Gulp.

Baily's Beads and a double diamond ring effect at the end of totality of the moon eclipsing the sun ... [+] during The Great American Total Solar Eclipse on August 21, 2017 at Sesquicentennial State Park in Columbia, South Carolina. (Photo by Chris McKay/WireImage)

Total solar eclipses happen roughly every 18 months, but mostly they occur at sea or in unpopulated areas. Theyre expensive to travel to. So the arrival of a coast-to-coast Great American Eclipse stretching from Oregon to South Carolina on August 21, 2017, was a massive cause for celebration. Most Americans just didnt get it, didnt travel to the narrow path of totality to glimpse the solar corona, and will probably never know what they missed. However, for those that did get clued-up and travel to experience totality, it was life-changingas eclipse-chaser David Barron eloquently explained in a TED talk. If youve never experienced a total solar eclipse, what exactly is on your bucket list? North America will get another chance in April 2024.

An artist's concept of the alien planet Kepler-452b, the first near-Earth-size alien planet to be ... [+] discovered in the habitable zone of a sunlike star. NASA unveiled the exoplanet discovery on July 23, 2015.

In 2010 astronomers knew of about 450 exoplanetsplanets orbiting other stars. Now they know of over 4,000 thanks to the incredible work of the Kepler Space Telescope between 2009 and 2018. Kepler-452b was the first near-Earth-size alien planet to be discovered in the habitable zone of a sunlike star, unveiled on July 23, 2015, but there have been countless others. The number of known exoplanets now doubles approximately every 27 months, so it was fitting when, in October 2019, the Nobel Prize in Physics was split between cosmologist Jim Peebles and Swiss astronomers Michel Mayor and Didier Queloz, who found the first exoplanet orbiting a sun-like star (51 Pegasi) in 1995. No doubt about it, during the 2010s exoplanet-hunting went from being a niche area to become the pre-eminent area of enquiry in modern astronomy.

It may not be a planet anymore, but Pluto was revealed to be a wondrous world when, in July 2015, NASAs New Horizons spacecraft whizzed past its icy surface and collected some remarkable data. As well as taking our first-ever close-up photos of Pluto, New Horizons discovered that the dwarf planet is geologically active and may have a subsurface ocean beneath its crust.New Horizons then sped-off to rendezvous on New Years Day 2019with Kuiper Belt object 2014 MU69, nicknamed Ultima Thule. but since renamed Arrokoth. What a mission!

This one wasnt planned, but it was easily the most impactful astronomical event of 2013. On February 15 that year the entire planet got a wake-up call when a 19-meter-wide, 12,000-ton asteroid detonated above Chelyabinsk in west-central Russia. A long vapor trail and its startling light was captured by hundreds of dash cams, while the explosions shock wave moments later shattered windows and injured thousands. Overnight, asteroid impactavoidance became the business of space agencies.

What is missing from this list? A lot, for sure. There are dozens more SpaceX moments that could be included and a few from Blue Origin, too, though space tourism never really got off the ground (and even cost lives in the crash of Virgin Galactics VSS Enterprise in 2014). For British space fans, Tim Peakes six months in the ISS in 2015 -2016 were a game-changer. In Israel, SpaceILs brave Beresheet moonshot mission sparked incredible enthusiasm.

In the end, though, space exploration is all about looking forward, not back. Come the summer of 2020, were all be talking about NASA astronauts finally going up to the ISS from American soil, and then its Mars seasonNASA, ESA and Chinas CNSA all blast-off to the red planet in a short launch windowbefore we start watching for progress on NASAs ambitious Artemis mission.

None of that would be on the slate if it wasnt for the decade just gone, one that renewed public and private interest in space, astronomy and space exploration.

Wishing you clear skies and wide eyes.

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The Decade That Made Space Fashionable Again: From The Shuttle's Demise To A Tesla In Space - Forbes