[25 Years Ago]

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) has begun a program that will result in a permanently manned, fully operational United States space station by the mid-1990s. The space station is intended to support scientific and commercial endeavors in space, stimulate new technologies, enhance space-based operational capabilities, and, in general, maintain America´s leadership in space during the last decade of this century and into the next century… [T]he station can be used as a base by orbital maneuvering vehicles and orbital transfer vehicles (OMV and OTV). The OMV is a remotely controlled vehicle that can be controlled from several hundred miles away by a crew member on the shuttle or station. The OTV would extend man´s presence far beyond the range of the OMV by being able to travel tens of thousands of miles from the station to geosynchronous orbit and then to the moon, transporting large platforms, or a crew of two to four astronauts, or an OMV.