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Space shuttle: early moves
Saturday August 10, 1968

The British Interplanetary Society headquarters

London University College.


“I believe that the exploitation of space is limited in concept and extent by the very high cost of putting payload into orbit, and the inaccessibility of objects after they have been launched. Therefore, I would forecast that the next major thrust in space will be the development of an economical launch vehicle for shuttling between Earth and the installations, such as the orbiting space stations which will soon be operating in space […]

Essential to the continuous operation of the space station will be the capability to resupply expendables as well as to change and/or augment crews and laboratory equipment.... Our studies show that using today's hardware, the resupply cost for a year equals the original cost of the space station […]

…Therefore, there is a real requirement for an efficient earth-to-orbit transportation system-an economical Space Shuttle.... ideally it would be able to operate in a mode similar to that of large commercial air transports and be compatible with the environment of major airports....

The cockpit of the space shuttle would be similar to that of the large intercontinental jet aircraft, containing all instrumentation essential to complete on-board checkout.... Interestingly enough, the basic design described above for an economical space shuttle from earth to orbit could also be applied to terrestrial point-to-point transport […]

The Space Shuttle is another step toward our Destiny, another hand-hold on our future. We will go where we choose-on our earth-throughout our solar system and through our galaxy-eventually to live on other worlds of our universe. Man will never be satisfied with less than that"


(NASA deputy administrator George E. Mueller)

(NOTE: there has been a small retcon at the end of post 16, when George Low is searching for a ballast to go with the Apollo 8 CSM)

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