>>1480272>I didn't say thatThat's what you consistently do.
>TimeWhich is only relevant when you use it for missions, with 1986-88 and 2003-06 being great examples.
>No, a small selection of it was. Nice cherry pickYou can't provide any NASA documents that support you (because they don't exist). Nothing in the rest of that document refutes it.
>Neither do youI've been constantly posting sources. Every single "
nasa.gov" reference on this page is from me. Most of my posts have pictures taken from NASA documents attached. Your "best" was fucking
space.com's facts page.
>All that mattersFor the cost of the STS, a cheaper heavy lift vehicle could've been made, and taken more cargo and passengers to orbit. Reusability is not the path to max payload. Hell, if you stripped the TPS and wings off an orbiter it would get you more payload capacity on that flight.
>Sounds like they're the real problem to you, not the ShuttleAs I've said before, Congress, the OMB, and the Nixon administration had the biggest influence on what the STS would be. NASA originally wanted a fully reusable vehicle in two stages or barring that, liquid fueled boosters. The cargo bay was determined entirely by the airforce. The American government made NASA create and use a sub-optimal vehicle, the Space Transportation System.
>NASA used rockets throughout the Shuttle program's duration.NASA had nothing but the STS, with the option to buy commercial for certain other launches (like Cassini-Huygens). NASA certainly had no manned alternative, and even 10 years later they have no flying manned alternative, which is a testament to how American government policy makes creating and switching to new launch vehicles difficult. They couldn't just say "Shuttle is too expensive, Congress give us money to build something else."
