Nixon Approves the Space Shuttle Program
On this day · 5 January 1972
On a January day in 1972, a single presidential decision committed America to a reusable spaceplane that would fly for thirty years.
On January 5, 1972, President Richard Nixon met NASA Administrator James C. Fletcher in San Clemente, California, and committed the United States to building an “entirely new type of space transportation system.” The choice came more than two years after a presidential advisory group had weighed options ranging from a Mars mission to a permanent orbiting station.
Tight federal budgets ruled out the grander plans. What Nixon backed instead was a craft that could shuttle repeatedly from Earth to orbit and back, with most of the vehicle recovered and reused — the formal Space Transportation System. Reusability was the whole pitch: planners hoped each orbiter might fly up to 100 times, slashing the cost of reaching space.
“I have decided today that the United States should proceed at once with the development of an entirely new type of space transportation system.”
The decision shaped American spaceflight for decades. The first orbiter, Columbia, reached space in 1981, and the program ran until 2011 — defining how astronauts, satellites, and the early space station were carried aloft.
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