Lousma later was the Republican Party nominee for a seat in the United States Senate from Michigan in 1984, losing to incumbent Carl Levin, who won his second of six terms.

He was a reconnaissance pilot with VMCJ-2, 2nd MAW, at Marine Corps Air Station Cherry Point, North Carolina, before being assigned to the Manned Spacecraft Center in Houston, Texas.

He served as backup docking module pilot of the United States flight crew for the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project mission, which was completed successfully in July 1975.

[2] The crew on this 59½ day flight included Alan Bean (spacecraft commander), Lousma (pilot), and Owen K. Garriott, who acted as a science-pilot.

The crew completed 333 medical experiment performances and obtained valuable data on the effects of extended weightlessness on humans.

This was a planned mission scheduled to launch in mid-1979, which was intended to use the Teleoperator Retrieval System to boost the orbit of Skylab, to allow for the space station's potential further use.

Major flight test objectives included exposing Columbia to extremes in thermal stress and the first use of the 15 m (49 ft) Remote Manipulator System (RMS) to grapple and maneuver a Payload in space.

[14] A Republican, Lousma lost the 1984 United States Senate election in Michigan against incumbent Carl Levin, receiving 47% of the vote.

[15] The astronaut-politician survived a bitter primary fight against former Republican congressman Jim Dunn to capture the nomination with 63% of the vote.

Ronald Reagan's landslide re-election was a boon to Lousma, but he was hurt late in the campaign when video surfaced of him telling a group of Japanese auto manufacturers that his family owned a Toyota car.

[8] The three Skylab astronaut crews were awarded the 1973 Robert J. Collier Trophy "For proving beyond question the value of man in future explorations of space and the production of data of benefit to all the people on Earth".

[20][21] Gerald P. Carr accepted the 1975 Dr. Robert H. Goddard Memorial Trophy from President Ford, awarded to the Skylab astronauts.