“You are here,” Antonio continued, “because NASA is about to embark on its greatest and most groundbreaking enterprise yet: the space shuttle program. Until now, space exploration has been exceptional. It has been rare. Soon it will become routine.”

Antonio lifted the cover off the easel and showed a blueprint of a spacecraft. Everyone in the room leaned forward. Joan was familiar with the concept of the shuttle, but learning this level of detail about how it would work made her pulse quicken.

“The shuttles are the first spacecraft in NASA history designed to be reusable,” he said. “With a fleet of shuttles, we can fly into low space orbit over and over again. Launches will happen monthly, even weekly. We will carry cargo to deploy to space. We will perform experiments. Eventually, we believe, we will establish a permanent presence in space, including a space station and manned flights to Mars, built by the shuttle missions we are developing today.”

Antonio grabbed the pointer from the easel.

“This is the orbiter,” he said, pointing to the bulk of the shuttle. “It will launch with an external tank and two solid rocket boosters, one on each side.” He removed the top diagram to show another, more complex one.

“Once the shuttle is launched, the external gas tank and the solid rocket boosters will fall away. And the orbiter will enter low-Earth orbit. As for the crew…” He pointed to the nose of the orbiter. “They will occupy the flight deck here and the mid-deck here.”

The flight and mid-decks were tiny compared to the rest of the orbiter. Joan was starting to get a sense of scale, and she could not keep a smile from escaping.

“Once in orbit, the shuttle will be traveling at approximately five miles a second at a typical altitude of around two hundred miles, circling Earth every ninety minutes. After the astronauts have completed their mission, they will return to Earth. Unlike previous programs here at NASA, we will not be using a splashdown landing in the water. Instead, upon successful reentry into the atmosphere, the shuttle will fly—much like an airplane—and land, wheels down, at one of our bases.”

Antonio stepped back and allowed everyone to take that in. Then he resumed his introduction:

“By now I hope you have surmised that you are looking at a spacecraft unlike anything we’ve seen before. The shuttle is not one piece of machinery. It is three. On launch, it is a rocket. In orbit, it is a spaceship. On landing, it is an airplane. This is what will allow us to usher in the future of space exploration.”

Joan felt a flutter in her belly. It was the same feeling she’d gotten the first time she saw the glowing band of the Milky Way when her parents took her to Joshua Tree as a child.