posted 05-03-2015 07:01 AM               

An early Harry Anderson Space City Cover Society cacheted cover is shown for the selection of Houston, Texas, as the location for the future Space Shuttle (Mission) Control Center to be built for the newly designated Space Shuttle Program, June 10, 1971.

This early space shuttle concept cover depicts six major stages of the orbiter and booster rockets from launch of the space shuttle and its booster rockets to Earth orbit, achieving orbit, jettisoning rocket boosters, crew's working in space, orbiter reentry, and finally, landing of the space shuttle vehicle on a designated runway much like a commercial airplane. For space cover collectors, this is the first space cover in the series of space covers to collect concerning approval of the new Space Shuttle Program.

Space Cover #315: Space Shuttle Launched from San Clemente, California

President Richard Nixon's earlier speech concerning U.S. Space Program priorities the previous March 1971 had been somewhat confusing and lacking in details to meeting attendees. Meeting subsequently with NASA Administrator, James Fletcher at the Western Whitehouse, at San Clemente, California, January 5, 1972, though, President Nixon was very clear.

In a scheduled press conference, Nixon directly stated, "I have decided today that the United States should proceed at once with the development of an entirely new type of space transportation system designed to help transform the space frontier of the 1970s into familiar territory, easily accessible for human endeavor in the 1980s and '90s." President Nixon continued, "This system will center on a space vehicle that can shuttle repeatedly from Earth to orbit and back. It will revolutionize transportation into near space, by routinizing it. It will take the astronomical costs out of astronautics."

Above: NASA Administrator James Fletcher Discusses Space Shuttle with President Richard Nixon, January 5, 1972. CREDIT: NASA

President Nixon used the wording "space shuttle" to name the complicated and unwieldy designation "space transportation system, Orbiter Vehicle, OV-101" that NASA had conferred upon the new transportation system to follow the successful conclusion of the U.S. Apollo Moon landing program. This indeed was a historic moment in the U.S. Space Program with the President graphically outlining NASA's vision of the new space vehicle transportation program to come.

NASA Administrator, James Fletcher, present at the President's press conference at San Clemente commented, "By the end of this decade the nation will have the means of getting men and equipment to and from space routinely, on a moment's notice if necessary, and at a small fraction of today's cost. This will be done within the framework of a useful total space program of science, exploration, and applications at approximately the present overall level of the space budget."

After President Nixon's press conference, Fletcher, speaking to the press, confirmed that in-depth studies by NASA and aerospace industry commercial industry had reached the point of departure to proceed with actual development of the space shuttle vehicle, SSV, in NASA phraseology. He noted that the decision to proceed and which the President had now approved, aligned with budgeting presented to and approved by the U.S. Congress in NASA's current fiscal year 1972 budget. He commented, "The decision by the President is a historic step in the nation's space program — it will change the nature of what man can do in space."

After the press conference, Administrator Fletcher described what the space shuttle would look like. He continued, "The Space Shuttle will consist of an aircraft-like orbiter, about the size of a DC-9. It will be capable of carrying into orbit and back again to Earth useful payloads up to 15 ft. in diameter by 60 ft. long, and weighing up to 65,000 pounds. Fuel for the orbiter's liquid-hydrogen/liquid-oxygen engines will be carried in an external tank that will be jettisoned in orbit."

He stated that the space shuttle would be launched by unmanned rocket boosters and would be able to operate in space for about a week. The astronauts on the shuttle would be able to launch, service, and recover unmanned spacecraft. They would also be able to perform experiments and other useful operations in Earth orbit. In the future, they would be able to resupply crews and equipment modules which they themselves would have brought to space via the space shuttle. And, upon mission completion, the shuttle crew would return to Earth and land the space shuttle on a designated runway much like a commercial aircraft lands.

Fletcher also laid out an immediate time line for building the space shuttle. By spring, NASA would issue a request for proposals to prospective government contractors. By the summer, NASA would award the space shuttle contract, and development work would start. In the interim two months before this, NASA and interested contractors would focus study efforts on technical areas in which further detailed information would be required before NASA's request for proposal for the space shuttle could be issued.

The technical comparisons of pressure-fed liquid fuel and solid fuel rocket motor options for the booster stage also were key engineering and technical questions that would need to be addressed. The space shuttle finally would become a reality.