The government was willing to lavish the necessary funds on NASA while the “space race” was at its height, but when public interest waned following the Apollo 11 moon landing in July 1969, Congress began steadily reducing NASA’s funding. One defect of the moon-landing program was that it was extremely expensive, owing in part to its single-use launch rockets and capsules. Although there were several perilous moments in the moon landing effort, there had been only one serious accident, when three astronauts were killed during a launchpad test for the first Apollo mission in 1967. The manned space flight program was a high-risk venture, rapidly developing and deploying new technologies. They were carried out against the geopolitical backdrop of the rivalry between the United States and Soviet Union for preeminence in space exploration.

The Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo programs, stepping stones to the moon landing in July 1969, had proceeded on an accelerated schedule to reach the target President Kennedy had set in 1961. The space shuttle program of the 1970s was the successor to the manned space flight program of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), which had achieved its ambitious goal of landing an American on the moon by the end of the 1960s. This narrative can be used with the Ronald Reagan and Supply-Side Economics Narrative the Ronald Reagan, Address to the Nation on the Challenger Disaster, JanuPrimary Source and the Herblock, Cartoons of Ronald Reagan, 1984-1987 Primary Source. Use this narrative after students have read the introductory essay to introduce domestic milestones during Reagan’s presidency.

Human space shuttle columbia debris