The resolution on the shuttle is ‘go’ — Science News, January 15, 1972
President Nixon’s announcement final week of the choice to start growth of an area shuttle system might show to be almost as essential to the way forward for the manned area program because the 1961 Kennedy problem to land a person on the moon.
Update
The shuttle program was NASA astronauts’ ticket to area for 30 years. Beginning in 1981, 5 reusable spacecraft carried out many essential missions, together with serving to to construct the International Space Station and carrying the Hubble Space Telescope into orbit. Despite preliminary hopes that the shuttles would usher in an period of low-cost spaceflight, this system was deemed too costly to proceed and resulted in 2011. Recently, NASA has begun working with personal firms to move astronauts to low Earth orbit. In 2020, SpaceX flew six astronauts to the International Space Station (SN: 12/19/20 & 1/2/21, p. 36). Last April, NASA introduced it had tapped SpaceX to ferry astronauts to the floor of the moon as a part of the upcoming Artemis program.