[astroflask]

> What's the point of the Space Shuttle if launches were more expensive than disposable rockets? What's the point of the Buran, if the Soviets didn't feel like they need an answer to the space shuttle "just in case", even though they couldn't see any point in the shuttle design (except as a nuke carrier)?

Rather than nukes, I always thought the main advantage of the Shuttle was the ability to bring things back to Earth. Which it did, a few times:

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/STS-32

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/STS-51-A

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/STS-57

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/STS-72

When then Shuttle was proposed, this was one of the main selling points. Having used it just 4 times over 133 missions... Well, that's not what was envisioned.

[flohofwoe]

AFAIK the Russians were mainly concerned about the ability of the Space Shuttle to quickly change its orbital plane, combined with the planned high frequency of flights (which never happened though) and high cargo capacity.

Put a few nukes on the Shuttle, and you can drop them anywhere in the world with much less warning time than intercontinental ballistic missiles. At least that's what I read about the reasoning of the Russians building their own shuttle, because when they ran the numbers on the Space Shuttle they concluded that a "civilian use" didn't make much sense.

[astroflask]

Changing orbital plane requires delta V, and the Shuttle had barely enough to make it to LEO (the highest it ever went was servicing the Hubble).

Cargo capacity... Not that much really, since you're carrying yourself a whole lot of orbiter already. It had a large volume in the cargo bay, and the mentioned ability to retrieve things in that cargo bay.

But yes, DoD/military influenced the design of the Shuttle. It just turns out they never used the capabilities they requested. And so you end up with a craft that makes little sense for civilian use, except for the building of a massive space station in orbit and eventual servicing of satellites.

[dylan604]

Would the ISS be possible without the Shuttle?

[rainbowzootsuit]

From some distant memory the dimensions of the Space Shuttle cargo bay was specifically matched to accommodate the launch and servicing of the Hubble Space telescope. I'm not sure which design drove which.

[vkou]

The HST was a close variant of various military spy satellites. The difference is that it was pointed into space, as opposed to towards Earth.

Consider that a large number of Shuttle missions were classified, then put two and two together...

[Bjartr]

One designed advantage that, AFAIK, was never leveraged is the ability to launch to space and land in a single orbit.