GMA Dave Trips: Out Of This World The 40th Anniversary of the First Space Shuttle NASA and last updated 2021-04-16 04:00:16-04 Many of us remember the moment the first space shuttle was launched. It was four decades ago on a sunny day in mid April. Even though the program officially started in the early 1970s, it was this moment in 1981 that NASA was reaching for their main goal, reducing the cost to get into space. . Dave Hostetter-Retired Curator of the Lafayette Science Museum's Planetarium Dave Hostetter, the former curator of the Lafayette Science Museum's Planetarium says, "Previously all piloted space missions had been designed for one mission. One rocket, one mission. So the idea was to build a reusable spacecraft to try to bring the price down."