Space Shuttle was a compromised design from the beginning. They originally wanted the Space Shuttle booster to also have wings and return to launch site (with a crew!). But they couldn't afford to develop two new vehicles, so they compromised by making the external tank as cheap as possible and adding solid rockets (which led to the Challenger disaster).
But their biggest mistake was having the engines on the orbiter (so they could be recovered) but not the fuel tank. That meant the orbiter had to hang on the side of the external tank, which made it vulnerable to foam strikes (leading to the Columbia disaster).
Landing with wings is aesthetically pleasing (compared to tower catches) but consider the waste: You have to boost the weight of the wings, landing gear, etc. all the way to orbit and then bring it all the way back. It's much more efficient to just bring fuel and use that for landing. And if your guidance is accurate enough, a pinpoint landing means you can land on the launch tower and not worry about landing legs.
For the shuttle there was also a lot of interference from the Airforce, which forced them to have a massive payload bay, so AF could launch and service their big Keyhole satellites (and possibly snatch Soviet ones in one orbit without warning).
Then there was pressure to make use of solid propellants to amortize their use with military uses, not to mention pushing for Shuttle carrying all payloads for the US.
This together created the dangerous and expensive design tHat was STS.
People give the USAF shit about influencing the shuttle specs, given the capability was never used...
... but a lot of those were set in 1968 - 73, when relationships between the US and Soviet Union were very different than the late 80s.
Given the development and operational timelines, it wasn't a bad bet to cover needing that military capability, had things turned out differently between the two superpowers.
[−]literalAardvark · 2026-11-15 Sun 11:52 UTC ·
link
> given the capability was never used
I don't think the period is entirely declassified? If it ever will be
Challenger blew because the joint was designed to always be in compression--but it went into tension during the twang. After the headlines they paid attention and fixed it.
Congress insisted on the boosters to be made in other districts distant from the launch sites, so they were forced to make them in segments instead of a single continuous tube welded together permanently.
The risky thing about solids is that you cannot abort them. Once they light, there is no turning them off.
Shuttle always started the main engines for a few seconds (wasting fuel) to make sure the engines worked before lighting the solids. But there were many engine-out scenarios after the solids were lit that would result in loss-of-crew.
There are some ways of turning off solid motors - you cen blow off side panels to drop the pressure inside and either stop combustion or make the thrust negligible.
But tjis was IIRC used on single stick ICBMs and won't be really applicable for anything more delicate.
Solids or no, there were a lot of engine-out scenarios that would cause loss of crew. There were substantial parts of the flight where the orbiter wouldn't have the energy to reach a runway.
And the whole dispersed engine system of the Shuttle made any sort of engine out quite dangerous due to imbalanced thrust. When the engines are all right next to each other it's much more resilient against the failure of one, but the Shuttle would be in trouble if it lost any of it's three legs.
I'm not a huge fan of perchlorate based mixtures like the SRBs. Perchlorate ion is kind of interesting in that it behaves a bit, but not exactly, like iodine. Biochemically, it means thyroid attempts to process it like iodine but fails. In adults that's reversible, but in children it can cause permanent developmental issues.
Incidentally, presence of perchlorates is also one of the main concerns with martian soil.
At least a hydrogen or methane explosion is quite clean, even cleaner than kerosene.
It wasn't actually the Airforce, it was a group of consultants at the white house who forced it. But even without that, many of the bad choices had already been made by then.
> Then there was pressure to make use of solid propellants
As far as I remember the decision was based on development costs (like most decisions).
I tend to think that for human rated flights it may be possible to give it a parachute just in case powered descent is not possible for any reason as a precaution for a belly flop water landing with parachute assist. The flaps are already there too so maybe just increase their size is possible for a glidable descent? We're entering a size class for the vehicle that makes some outside the box stuff possible without sacrificing too much in terms of payload capacity.
Space Shuttle was a compromised design from the beginning. They originally wanted the Space Shuttle booster to also have wings and return to launch site (with a crew!). But they couldn't afford to develop two new vehicles, so they compromised by making the external tank as cheap as possible and adding solid rockets (which led to the Challenger disaster).
But their biggest mistake was having the engines on the orbiter (so they could be recovered) but not the fuel tank. That meant the orbiter had to hang on the side of the external tank, which made it vulnerable to foam strikes (leading to the Columbia disaster).
Landing with wings is aesthetically pleasing (compared to tower catches) but consider the waste: You have to boost the weight of the wings, landing gear, etc. all the way to orbit and then bring it all the way back. It's much more efficient to just bring fuel and use that for landing. And if your guidance is accurate enough, a pinpoint landing means you can land on the launch tower and not worry about landing legs.
Then there was pressure to make use of solid propellants to amortize their use with military uses, not to mention pushing for Shuttle carrying all payloads for the US.
This together created the dangerous and expensive design tHat was STS.
... but a lot of those were set in 1968 - 73, when relationships between the US and Soviet Union were very different than the late 80s.
Given the development and operational timelines, it wasn't a bad bet to cover needing that military capability, had things turned out differently between the two superpowers.
I don't think the period is entirely declassified? If it ever will be
Given they launch in full view of many people, not from behind a fake mayan temple in the middle of the rain forrest.
Challenger blew because the joint was designed to always be in compression--but it went into tension during the twang. After the headlines they paid attention and fixed it.
Shuttle always started the main engines for a few seconds (wasting fuel) to make sure the engines worked before lighting the solids. But there were many engine-out scenarios after the solids were lit that would result in loss-of-crew.
But tjis was IIRC used on single stick ICBMs and won't be really applicable for anything more delicate.
And the whole dispersed engine system of the Shuttle made any sort of engine out quite dangerous due to imbalanced thrust. When the engines are all right next to each other it's much more resilient against the failure of one, but the Shuttle would be in trouble if it lost any of it's three legs.
Incidentally, presence of perchlorates is also one of the main concerns with martian soil.
At least a hydrogen or methane explosion is quite clean, even cleaner than kerosene.
> Then there was pressure to make use of solid propellants
As far as I remember the decision was based on development costs (like most decisions).