A POST-APOLLO
PROGRAM
In
1969 a Space Task Group recommended to President Richard Nixon a
space program to follow the missions to the Moon. The plan included
a permanently occupied space station, a reusable shuttle spacecraft,
and eventual missions to Mars. But because of increasing budget
pressures these ideas received little political or public support.
Only the Space Shuttle won favor and funding, and even that decision
was controversial.
When
the last two Apollo missions were canceled, NASA used some of the
remaining Apollo hardware for an experimental space station, Skylab,
as an interim program before the Shuttle was ready to fly.
|