Nixon Orders the Space Shuttle: America's Next Giant Leap

Nixon didn't want to build the Space Shuttle. He wanted to kill the space program. After Apollo 11, NASA had laid out plans for a permanent moon base, a space station, and a crewed mission to Mars by 1981. Nixon's budget office said no to all of it. What survived was the shuttle — the cheapest option, barely. Nixon approved it on January 5, 1972, framing it as routine transportation to orbit. NASA promised it would fly 50 times a year. It averaged five. They promised it would cost $118 million per flight. It averaged $1.5 billion. But it flew 135 missions over 30 years, launched the Hubble Space Telescope, and built the International Space Station. The program Nixon reluctantly approved outlasted his presidency by three decades.