in part because of "star trek", the term "space shuttle" has permanently entered earth's vocabulary as a vehicle for traveling between a planetary surface and space. wernher von braun in the 1950s conceived of a reusable winged spacecraft as a ferry rocket. plans for such vehicles were referred to as "dc-3" by spacecraft designer maxime faget and integrated launch and reentry vehicle (ilrv) by nasa. during the late 1960s, while "" was being broadcast, these concepts became known as space shuttle. in a speech given to the british interplanetary society in august 1968 george mueller, head of the nasa office of manned space flight, mentioned the need for a space shuttle. this was the earliest known official use of the term.