The Space Shuttle program was launched on this day in an announcement by President Richard Nixon in 1972. He’d started looking into advancements in space exploration in 1969 when he gathered subject experts to help him decide what should come next for the country’s space program. Three years later, he told the nation in a televised speech that NASA would build spacecraft that would include reusable parts, helping to pare down the program’s high costs and make it easier to get astronauts back into space more quickly.
The shuttles were attached to rockets that shot into the sky like any other, but their return was more innovative – instead of a traditional parachute method, the shuttle would glide through the atmosphere, allowing it to be steered and safely land on a runway. NASA revealed the first space shuttle, the Enterprise, in 1976 (see our previous Off-script on it here). The last space shuttles in operation were retired in 2011.
You can read more about the early days of the space shuttle program at NASA.
