The Nation - News from March 31, 1986

Acting NASA Administrator William R. Graham directed an agency task force to draft a proposal for replacing the shuttle Challenger with a new orbiter that would be financed and owned by private industry and leased to the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, agency officials told the Washington Post. The idea was advanced recently by General Space Corp., a Pittsburgh-based firm whose vice chairman is James C. Fletcher, President Reagan’s choice to be the new NASA administrator. The firm, a subsidiary of Astrotech International Corp., has offered to privately raise the $1.5 billion to $2 billion needed.