Spacecraft & Missiles - 1970s
The 1970s were a fallow period for manned spacecraft designs. For the decade's first half, time-tested Apollo and Soyuz vehicles were used for a number of lunar and orbital missions, including the last of the moon landings, American Skylab and Soviet Soylut space station projects, and the historic Apollo-Soyuz link-up of 1975. But then the American space program went into hibernation as NASA engineers debated endlessly over the configuration -- and capabilities -- of the proposed space shuttle. It would not be until the 1980s that America returned to space.