Technically, you should be able to achieve this at some point during your game, but you'll need to research the CO2 Jet Propulsion technology under the Robotics tech tree first, which appears about halfway through the Robotics tree.
A much quicker way to earn this is by selecting the Rocket Scientist commander profile when starting a new game. This profile starts the new with the CO2 Jet Propulsion technology already unlocked, which means you can build a Shuttle Hub fro the outset.