The vehicle we know as the space shuttle was first proposed
in 1969 as part of a report by the Space Task Group, commissioned by President
Nixon to map out a post Apollo space program. The report proposed a vigorous
technology and exploration program that would have included a large space
station, serviced by a reusable space shuttle, lunar bases, and eventually
expeditions to Mars. The report was greeted very coolly by the White House, the
Congress, the media, and even the public at large. With President Kennedy’s
goal of landing a man on the Moon and returning him safely to the Earth
achieved, the appetite for large scale, expensive space adventures had waned.
More Earth bound concerns such as poverty, health care, and the environment
seemed more important than trips to Mars.
Even so, President Nixon was unwilling to end human space
flight entirely. Aerospace was an important component of the national economy.
People employed in that industry constituted an important voting block. Space
travel was also a source of national pride. The Nixon Administration approved
the space shuttle as NASA’s post Apollo project.
On its face, the rationale for building a reusable space
shuttle seemed obvious. Hitherto, space travel had been conducted on expendable
rockets with vehicles to be used only for one mission. It was as if people
traveled on an air plane that was thrown away after every flight. If one could
build a space vehicle that could be used many times, like an air liner, then
the immense cost of space travel would decrease. Other space goals, such as space
stations and expeditions to Mars, would be brought into the realm of the
fiscally possible.
The X-15 program certainly showed that a winged vehicle with
a rocket engine that could be reused many times as feasible. Other technologies necessary for building and operating a space shuttle, such as reusable thermo protection materials and
computerized checkout techniques, seemed within the grasp of engineers.