The Untold Stories of the Space Shuttle Program

In September 1969, several months after the Apollo 11 lunar landing, President Richard M. Nixon established the Space Task Force to chart NASA's path for the decades to come. This imaginative vision was shattered less than six months later when, on January 13, 1970, NASA Administrator Dr. Thomas Paine announced that, owing to funding cuts, only the reusable Space Shuttle could be afforded -- there would be no space station, no return to the Moon, and no missions to Mars.This is a story never before told about the missions and technologies that NASA had begun to plan but never fully realized. The book is a companion to the author s previous two works on the Space Shuttle. Whereas the first two books showed how the Space Shuttle flew in space and what the program accomplished, this book explains what more the Space Shuttle could have achieved and how the space transportation system could have further matured if circumstances had been otherwise. A final chapter also discusses howsome of these plans might be resurrected in future programs. 

In September 1969, several months after the Apollo 11 lunar landing, President Richard M. Nixon established the Space Task Force to chart NASA’s path for the decades to come. This imaginative vision was shattered less than six months later when, on January 13, 1970, NASA Administrator Dr. Thomas Paine announced that, owing to funding cuts, only the reusable Space Shuttle could be afforded -- there would be no space station, no return to the Moon, and no missions to Mars.

This is a story never before told about the missions and technologies that NASA had begun to plan but never fully realized. The book is a companion to the author’s previous two works on the Space Shuttle. Whereas the first two books showed how the Space Shuttle flew in space and what the program accomplished, this book explains what more the Space Shuttle could have achieved and how the space transportation system could have further matured if circumstances had been otherwise. A final chapter also discusses howsome of these plans might be resurrected in future programs. 

Chapter 1: Space Shuttle 101.- Chapter 2: Making the most of the External Tank.- Chapter 3: Boosting the boosters.- Chapter 4: Improving performance.- Chapter 5: Outposts for the development of space.- Chapter 6: Orbital hopping.- Chapter 7: Unflown satellite servicing capabilities.- Chapter 8: In-space assembly: a potential not fully exploited.- Chapter 9: Factories in space.- Chapter 10: The unfulfilled potential of the External Tank.- Chapter 11: Space Shuttle freighter.- Chapter 12: The quest for a worthy successor.- Chapter 13: An impossible schedule.- Chapter 14: Space Shuttle and Skylab: a missed opportunity.- Chapter 15: Unflown science.- Chapter 16: Space Shuttle in Uniform: A lost collaboration.- Chapter 17: Too high a dream?.