Presidential Calls to Space: A Timeless Tradition

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Presidential Calls to Space: A Timeless Tradition (21.04.2017)

https://www.nasa.gov/feature/presidential-calls-to-space-a-timeless-tradition

Since President Richard Nixon's July 20, 1969, phone call from the White House to the Apollo 11 crew on the Moon, every U.S. president, except for Jimmy Carter during the six-year gap between the Apollo and Space Shuttle programs, has placed that special long-distance call. On Monday, April 24, President Donald Trump became the latest president to continue the tradition when he was joined by First Daughter Ivanka Trump and NASA astronaut Kate Rubins and made a 20-minute Earth-to-space call to personally congratulate NASA astronaut Peggy Whitson for her record-breaking stay aboard the International Space Station.

Below is a list of every phone call to space made by a U.S. president:

Richard Nixon

    Apollo 11 -- July 20, 1969 to crewmembers Buzz Aldrin and Neil Armstrong during their lunar extravehicular activity
    Skylab 1 -- June 17, 1973 to Commander Charles "Pete" Conrad, Jr. (from Nixon’s study at his residence at Key Biscayne, Fla.)

Gerald Ford

    Apollo-Soyuz Test Project (ASTP) -- July 17, 1975

Ronald Reagan

    STS-2 Columbia -- Nov. 13, 1981
    STS-5 Columbia -- Nov. 11, 1982
    STS-6 Challenger -- Apr. 7, 1983
    STS-8 Challenger -- Aug. 31, 1983 (to Commander Richard H. Truly and Mission Specialist   Guy Bluford, the first African-American in space)
    STS-9 Columbia -- Dec. 9, 1983 (conference call between Reagan, German Chancellor Helmut Kohl, and Shuttle crew)
    STS-41B Challenger -- Feb. 9, 1984
    STS-41C Challenger -- Apr. 10, 1984
    STS-41D Discovery -- Sept. 1, 1984
    STS-41G Challenger -- Oct. 12, 1984
    STS-51A Discovery -- Nov. 15, 1984
    STS-51B Challenger -- Apr. 19, 1985

George H.W. Bush

    STS-1 Columbia -- Apr. 13, 1981 (as Vice President)
    STS-30 Atlantis -- May 29, 1989
    STS-32 Columbia -- Jan. 18, 1990
    STS-42 Discovery -- Jan. 24, 1992
    STS-120 Discovery and Exp. 16 crew -- Nov. 1, 2007 (post-presidency with First Lady Barbara Bush)

Bill Clinton

    STS-57 Endeavour -- June 22, 1993
    STS-61 Endeavour -- Dec. 10, 1993 (with Vice President Al Gore)
    STS-60 Discovery -- Feb. 7, 1994 (from NASA's Johnson Space Center; first Shuttle flight of the Shuttle-Mir program)
    STS-63 Discovery -- Feb. 6, 1995 (first rendezvous of the Shuttle-Mir program)

George W. Bush

    STS-114 Discovery and Exp. 11 -- Aug. 2, 2005 (Return to Flight mission following the loss of STS-107 Columbia)
    STS-121 Discovery and Exp. 13 -- July 11, 2006

Barack Obama

    STS-119 Discovery and Exp. 18 -- Mar. 24, 2009
    STS-125 Atlantis -- May 20, 2009
    STS-130 Endeavour -- Feb. 17, 2010
    STS-133 Discovery -- Mar. 3, 2011
    STS-135 Atlantis -- July 15, 2011 (the final mission of the Space Shuttle Program)
    International Space Station -- Oct. 19, 2015 (to Scott Kelly during his One-Year mission and Exp. 45 Flight Engineer Kjell Lindgren)

Donald Trump

    International Space Station -- Apr. 24, 2017 (to Peggy Whitson for breaking the world record for most days in space by an American at 534 days; Whitson was joined by astronaut Jack Fischer; President Trump was joined by First Daughter Ivanka Trump and astronaut Kate Rubins)


Compiled by archivists Elizabeth Suckow and Colin Fries
Last Updated: April 24, 2017


Shown here is President Ronald Reagan at NASA's Johnson Space Center in November of 1981, jokingly asking STS-2 Columbia crewmembers Joe Engle and Richard Truly to pick him up in Washington, D.C., on their way to their California landing site.
Credits: NASA


President Richard Nixon in the Oval Office calling Apollo 11 crewmembers Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin while they're on the Moon on July 20, 1969. The call was made possible via telephone-radio relay.
Credits: National Archives and Records Administration