A Democratic “Space Truck”

After successfully putting a man on the moon, NASA cast about for its next mission. The space agency proposed sending humans to Mars, which required building a space station in low Earth orbit to serve as a staging base for trips to the red planet. To bring supplies and crew back and forth to the station, a reusable spacecraft was needed: a space shuttle. The Nixon administration was not keen on such ambitious—and costly—plans. Build the space shuttle, officials said; then we’ll see about a space station.

“For NASA,” writes John Logsdon , “developing what in essence was a space truck was a far less glamorous task than sending astronauts to the moon or Mars.” Administrators fretted about maintaining the public’s enthusiasm for the shuttle program and human spaceflight in general. Amy Paige Kaminsky details how NASA worked to generate support for the shuttle program in The People’s Spaceship: NASA, the Shuttle Era, and Public Engagement After Apollo, which Logsdon reviewed for Issues.

Unfortunately, Logsdon argues, many of NASA’s efforts were premised on the shuttle making space travel routine, safe, and economical. (Nixon’s announcement called for taking “the astronomical costs out of astronautics.”)?Although a technological marvel, the shuttle was still an experimental first-generation spacecraft. Over the course of three decades of operation, and two tragic accidents, it never achieved those goals.

Read more about how NASA sought to make the space shuttle the “people’s spaceship.”