Before International Space Station (ISS) a U.S. only Space Station was on the drawing board, a collaborative venture with four space agencies was then proposed by the name of Space Station 'Freedom'.

Space Station Freedom was a NASA project to construct a permanently manned Earth-orbiting space station in the 1980s. Although approved by then-president Ronald Reagan and announced in the 1984 State of the Union Address, Freedom was never constructed or completed as originally designed, and after several cutbacks, the project evolved into the International Space Station program.