The Unbelievable NASA Space Shuttle Designed To Carry 86 Astronauts At Once – SlashGear

In 1976, NASA was drawing up plans to develop a series of large space stations that would sit in high Earth orbit. Stations would run on solar power and would have been much larger than the Skylab space station that had recently been closed, as well as the MIR and International Space Stations that would come later. But in order to operate these larger stations, NASA and partner agencies around the world would need to develop a reliable means of bringing large crews up into orbit on a regular basis.

Fortunately, Rockwell and Boeing had each built large freight-type space vessels that could handle this mission — the “Star Raker” and “Space Freighter,” respectively. But neither of the models were designed for passenger flight, only the transportation of essential cargo. Therefore, Rockwell began work designing the “Personnel Launch System,” what essentially might be described as a large space shuttle. 

The framework of the shuttle that would eventually come into being was already in the works, so piggybacking off of this design made complete sense. A smaller version of the Star Raker was proposed, but the shuttle and large, single booster combination proved cheaper to create upfront and was chosen as the favored design. However, the space station project was eventually scuttled, and with it the need to build a fleet of large people movers.