I’m surprise you left out a huge factor in many of the poor design decisions being less than ideal for NASA’s needs, the DOD meddled and dictated a lot of the program from the beginning and ran at least several classified missions using it that we know about.

It’s really hard to say if the shuttle successfully meet its…

Interesting read... wish folks would refrain from using curse words in every article though. Not necessary and in my opinion the use of so-called bad words so often cheapens their effectiveness. They are not adjectives to be used in everyday conversations, rather only in extreme circumstances. Just my opinion of…