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While all of this was going on, others were suggesting a completely different approach to the future. They stated that NASA was better off using the existing Saturn to launch their space station, supplied and manned using modified Gemini capsules on top of the Air Force's newer Titan II-M. The cost of development for this looked to be considerably less than the shuttle alone, and would have a large space station in orbit earlier.

ALT
Tim Finn and Liam O'Maonlai. ALT is also an abbreviation for Assistant Language Teacher, the job title of people on the JET Programme. ALT was also an acronym by the NASA for the Approach and Landing Tests of the Space Shuttle in 1976. ALT can mean alternative lengthening of telomeres, a mechanism (other than telomerase) that cells use to maintain telomere length.

The Air Force relucantly agreed, but only after demanding a large increase in capability to allow for launching their projected spy satellites (mirrors are heavy). These were quite large, weighing an estimated 40,000 lbs, and needed to be put into polar orbit, which requires more energy to get to than the more common LEO. And since the AF also wanted to be able to abort after a single orbit (as did NASA), and land at the launch site (unlike NASA), the spacecraft would also require the ability to manuver significantly to either side of its orbital track to adjust for the launching point rotating away from it while in polar orbit - in a 90 minute orbit Vandenberg would move over 1,000 miles, whereas in a "normal" equatorial orbit NASA needed the range would be less than 400. This large 'cross-range' capability meant the craft had to have a greater lift to drag ratio than originally planned. This required the addition of bigger, heavier wings.

Shuttle development

The shuttle program was launched on January 5, 1972, when President Richard M. Nixon announced that NASA would proceed with the development of a reusable low cost space shuttle system.

The project was already to take longer than originally anticipated due to the year-to-year funding caps. Nevertheless work started quickly and several test articles were available within a few years.

Most notable among these was the first complete Orbiter, originally to be known as Constitution. However a massive write-in campaign on the part of fans of the TV show Star Trek convinced the White House to change the name to Enterprise. Enterprise was rolled out on September 17, 1976 and later conducted a very successful series of landing tests which was the first real validation of the gliding abilities of the design.

The first fully functional shuttle orbiter was the Columbia, which was delivered to Kennedy Space Center on March 25, 1979 and was first launched on April 12, 1981 with a crew of two. Challenger was delivered to KSC in July 1982, Discovery was delivered in November 1983, and Atlantis was delivered in April 1985. Challenger was destroyed in an explosion during launch in January 1986 with the loss of all seven astronauts on board, and Endeavour was built as a replacement (using spare parts originally built for the other orbiters) and delivered in May 1991. Columbia was lost, with all seven crew, in a re-entry mishap on February 1, 2003.

With the budgets being pressed by inflation at home and the Vietnam war abroad, Congress and the Administration generally couldn't care less about anything as long-term as space exploration and were therefore looking to make further deep cuts to NASAs budget. But with a single long term project on the books, there wasn't much they could do in terms of cutting whole projects -- the shuttle was all that was left, cut that and there would be no US manned space program by 1980.

Canadian space program
Canadian space program Canada has contributed expertise and personnel to the world space effort, especially in collaboration with NASA. Eight Canadians have participated on 11 NASA missions to date: Name Shuttle Mission Launch Date Notes Marc Garneau Challenger STS-41-G October 5, 1984 First Canadian in space Roberta Bondar Discovery STS-42 January 22, 1992 First Canadian woman in space Steven G. MacLean Columbia STS-52 October 22, 1992 Chris Hadfield Atlantis STS-74 November 12, 1995 Marc Garneau Endeavour STS-77 May 19, 1996 Robert Thirsk Columbia STS-78 June 20, 1996 Bjarni Tryggvason Discovery STS-85 August 7, 1997 Dafydd Rhys Williams Columbia STS-90 April 17, 1998 Julie Payette Discovery STS-96 May 27, 1999 Marc Garneau Endeavour STS-97 November 30, 2000 Chris Hadfield Endeavour STS-100 April 19, 2001 First spacewalk by a

List of human spaceflights
3 Mercury Missions 4 Shenzhou Missions 5 Skylab Missions 6 Soyuz Missions 7 Space Shuttle Missions 8 Voskhod Missions 9 Vostok Missions 10 Space stations 11 Spacecraft not yet flown with crew Apollo Missions Apollo 1 - crew perished in fire during training Apollo 7 Apollo 8 - first human flight around the moon Apollo 9 Apollo 10 Apollo 11 - first human moon landing Apollo 12 Apollo 13 - explosion en route to Moon forced emergency return to Earth by using free return trajectory Apollo 14 Apollo 15 Apollo 16 Apollo 17 Apollo-Soyuz - first joint Soviet-US mission Gemini Missions Gemini 3 Gemini 4 Gemini 5 Gemini 6A Gemini 7 Gemini 8 first docking in space Gemini 9A Gemini 10 Gemini 11 Gemini 12 Mercury Missions Mercury 3 Mercury 4

John Glenn
and politician. John Glenn during the Mercury program 1962 (NASA) Born in Cambridge, Ohio, he obtained a BS in Engineering from Muskingum College. He enrolled in the Naval Aviation Cadet Program in 1942, and was assigned to the Marines VMO-155 group in 1944. Glenn flew a Corsair over the Marshall Islands, specifically Maloelap, where he was tasked with attacking anti-aircraft gunnery and ground bombardment. By 1945, he was transferred to the Patuxent River Test Pilot School, where he became a test pilot and was promoted to Captain by the war's end. After the war, Glenn flew patrol missions in North China, based in Guam, but in 1948 he became an flight instructor at Corpus Christi, Texas, then undertook an amphibious warfare course and was assigned a staff assignment, all the while

Spirit Approaches "Methuselah" Outcrop on Mars This false-color rendering shows the scene acquired by NASA's Spirit rover on martian day, or sol, 454 (April 13, 2005), using its panoramic camera filters at 750-, 530-, and 430-nanometer wavelengths. In the background is "Clark Hill," nicknamed for one of the Columbia astronauts. Spirit is looking down at the outcrop on the left, nicknamed "Methuselah," from a slightly higher position, and will spend some time studying the outcrop before searching for a different route. Image credit: NASA/JPL/Cornell

Worse, any increase in the weight of the upper portion of a lauch vehicle, which had just occurred, requires an even bigger increase in the capability of the lower stage used to launch it. Suddenly the two-stage system grew in size to something larger than the Saturn V, and the complexity and costs to develop it skyrocketed.