This Is NASA's Very First Idea for a Space Station

Few people remember today, but before President Kennedy made his famous call in 1961 to land on the Moon by the end of the decade, the lunar surface wasn't NASA's intended destination. Instead, NASA had envisioned an Earth-orbiting space station as its first big goal. And while space station ideas can be traced back all the way to the 19th century, NASA's Atlas Orbital System design of the late 1950s was probably the first technically sound idea based primarily on available technology.

Think back to 1958. The newly created US space agency began work on the one-seat Mercury spacecraft as a response to the Soviet Sputnik's sudden success the previous year. The hastily launched program aimed to put a man in space before the USSR did (they failed). However, NASA strategists understood that once Mercury accomplished its political goal of putting an astronaut into orbit, any long-term human spaceflight program would need a destination. At the time, going to the Moon was still in the realm of science fiction and few believed it could be tackled right away. Instead, the space station seemed like the next logical step.

The developers didn't hide the fact that the station also would be a political tool in the Cold War

The first man to brainstorm the idea for NASA was Krafft Ehricke, the assistant to technical director of San-Diego-based Convair, the division of the General Dynamics Corporation. Ehricke was a member of the German rocket team behind the infamous V-2, which terrorized London and other European cities during World War II. Like many of his colleagues, he was recruited by the U.S. after the war. At Convair, Ehricke worked on the Atlas booster, America's first intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM), which began flight tests in June 1957. The same rocket was also expected to carry the Mercury spacecraft into orbit. 

Although the Atlas wasn't powerful enough to deliver an entire space station into orbit, Convair engineers came up with an ingenious solution—one that was later eyed for many other space projects, but has yet to be tried. The idea was that after the rocket had done the job of delivering the mission into a 400-mile-high orbit, the now-empty forward propellant tank (which had contained non-toxic liquid oxygen) would become the living quarters of the new space station. An inflatable structure made of rubber nylon was also proposed to provide insulation inside the stainless steel body of the rocket, and to subdivide the tank into different rooms. This trick would immediately give engineers enough volume to fit a four-story habitat, complete with a laboratory, a kitchen, a washroom, a playroom, and sleeping facilities for four people, who arrived in two space gliders (both launched on one rocket).

With its vertical design, the bottle-shaped station would make 2.5 rotations per minute to give its inhabitants a little bit of artificial gravity. A hallmark of the 1950s—the nuclear reactor—would produce all the needed electricity. All add-on components of the station would be launched on Atlas rockets upgraded with a custom-built space tug. In addition, the station could be expanded by adding extra empty tanks left over from crew exchange and resupply missions.  A special airlock would allow exiting the station to board incoming ships and conduct assembly work. The no-longer-needed main engine of the rocket, and its associated pressure tanks, could be reused for oxygen storage.

An array of other advanced concepts accompanied the station's design, including mini-shuttles to deliver and return pairs of astronauts and unmanned cargo ships carrying up to 8,000 pounds of supplies. The life support system was expected to feature a water-regeneration machine that would be familiar today to the crews on the International Space Station.

Because of its complete nature, including an entire supply line from Earth to orbit, the project was named the Atlas Orbital System. Convair engineers were optimistic enough to allocate just five years to implementing the ambitious design after a "go" decision. The 106-feet, 15,000-pound space station was expected to be assembled in a week and remain in orbit indefinitely. Shifts of astronauts could initially stay onboard for a week at a time, later extending their expeditions to a month. Cargo delivery was expected to be necessary once a year.

Ehricke publicly presented his concept on April 23, 1958, just six months after the launch of Sputnik and just weeks after President Eisenhower told the U.S. Congress about the need to boost the nation's space program. According to Ehricke, the station would be used to learn how to live in space and prepare for travel to other planets. It could serve as a base for launching probes to the Moon and to planets; for repairing satellites; for astronomical, geophysical and weather observations. The developers did not hide the fact that the station also would be a political tool in the Cold War, and a potential military platform.

"Because the Atlas Orbital System could be a reality within five years, it offers the earliest and first opportunity for man to go into space, and stay," Ehricke said, "This would enhance the nation's space operational capability and prove of untold benefit to science and mankind."

Then, Ehricke's dreams were derailed. In April 1961, the USSR launched the first man in space, just a few months before Mercury was ready to orbit a U.S. astronaut. The fresh Kennedy administration began a frantic search for a spectacular payback. The space station seemed like too timid for a response, as it could be easily matched if not outrun by cunning Russian rocketeers. Only a trip to the moon looked difficult and expensive enough to push the USSR beyond its limits.

In May 1961, John F. Kennedy committed America to the Apollo program, and all space station plans were shelved. For now.

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Anatoly Zak is a writer and illustrator specialized in astronautics. He publishes RussianSpaceWeb.com and the author of Russia in Space: Past Explained, Future Explored.