If things had been done right, Space Station "Freedom" would have been orbiting by 1993.
The problem was NASA was too smug and careless in 1985-1986
with space shuttle safety, causing the space agency years of delays
and billions of dollars taken from the space station project to return shuttles to orbit in 1988.
By then, no construction of Freedom could begin before 1992...
By then, it was too late to save Space Station Freedom
from budget cuts, delays and near-extinction.
Jacob