>>1298531As originally planned Space Shuttle was supposed to have crew of 4 and 9 tons of cargo capacity to LEO. What they actually built had capacity of almost three times as much cargo to LEO and larger crew. All that was done to accommodate DoD requirements, as shuttle wasn't going to get funded if it couldn't lift DoD and intelligence payloads. DoD wanted much larger cargo bay, NASA wanted 40ft by 12ft cargo bay, military and NRO wanted 60ft by 15ft cargo bay. Launch platform was supposed to be 747 sized mach 3+ capable aircraft, that would zoom climb to high altitude before shuttle would light it's engines.
