Aquestion about the shuttle

[omacar]

I read about the future of space and whether it will be a lifting body ala' Shuttle or a capsule ala Apollo and My questionis this; How much of the problem witht the shuttle due to the fact that NASA wanted one vehicle but the military wanted a different vehicle?<br /><br />I had seen a show once about that, it basically showed a cartoon of a Ferrari with a pick up back.

 

[viper101]

Someone summed it up nicely on SDC recently. It went something like this:<br /><br />The Tiles are a problem because they are fragile - they are fragile becuase they are light - they are light because the shuttle had to be so big - it had to be big cause the Air Force wanted it for launching/capturing spy sats. Ironically - the dod does not use the shuttle any more. <br /><br />But anyway - that about sums it up.