The History of Space Shuttles

The last ever launch of a space shuttle occurred on April 12, 1981, almost three decades after the first launch. However, the history of the space shuttle goes way back to around the beginning of WWII. In the late 1930s, the Nazis started the "Amerika Bomber" project with the goal of creating an aircraft that could fly from Germany to the US and drop a bomb. Several people submitted ideas for an aircraft but it was Eugen Sanger who proposed a winged rocket called Silbervogel. This aircraft would take off into suborbital space and then drop down into the stratosphere where the air density would give the vehicle lift. Although the "Amerika Bomber" project wasn't put into action, the ideas of a winged aircraft made its way to America after the war. In fact, there was a series of studies on Sanger's idea with the US Military and NASA taking part.

Soon a vehicle development program was started. From this the X-15 rocket plane and X-20 space plane were developed. The X-15 had over 200 test flights and was able to reach outer space. These vehicles helped lay the foundation for the space shuttle program.

The United States then began to focus more on their space program and putting a man on the moon in the 1960s. President John F. Kennedy wanted to put a man on the moon by the end of the decade in order to respond to the Soviet Union's space successes. The Apollo Program began and space plane development was postponed.

After putting a man on the moon, President Nixon established a space task group to help determine NASA's post-Apollo direction. They recommended to focus on shuttles, a space station, manned moon trips, and manned missions to Mars. Nixon thought this would be too expensive so he decided to just focus on the shuttle.

NASA's original vision for the space shuttle was a fully reusable, two-stage vehicle that would be piloted in both stages. However, budget issues kept this from happening and instead NASa designed an orbiter carried up by two reusable solid rocket boosters. The first shuttle, Enterprise, was eventually rolled out in September 1976. It was the second orbiter, Columbia, however, that made it to space. While the space shuttle lasted 30 years, funding issues kept NASA from developing a second-generation space plane.

Source:
https://www.space.com/12085-nasa-space-shuttle-history-born.html