[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...