>>1305745>Why didn't they just design their own fucking variant from the start instead of forcing those requirements onto NASABecause NASA was really strapped for cash. After the Apollo missions, the US just didn't care about space anymore. The Moon missions were cancelled and the last Saturn V to launch was for Skylab, which took an upper stage and converted it into a "dry workshop", basically putting a pressurised habitat inside what would have been cryogenic fuel tanks.
Then the money dried up for Skylab as well, and the last thing they got funded was Apollo-Soyuz.
Nixon really sucked NASA dry. Remember, the plan was for the Space Shuttle to build and service a space station in LEO, but Nixon cancelled that. It wasn't until DoD money and USAF money came in, that funding for the Space Shuttle allowed for the R&D to be completed, which included the requirements for the Space Shuttle to be able to fly into Sun Synchronous Orbits as well if launched from Vandenburg AFB.
This "national security" aspect to the Shuttle meant that it was not available for international cooperation. In response to requests by ESA for cooperation on the Space Shuttle being rejected, CNES paid for their astronauts to fly with Soviet crews to Mir and CNES together with ESA developed the Hermes space plane, which would be used for missions to LEO and would be launched on an Ariane 5 (which is why Ariane 5 is human rated).
After Challenger, the USAF ended their funding and construction of a Shuttle facility at Vandenburg AFB stopped. They even tested the launch pad with Enterprise and a dummy extenal tank and SRBs. Although DoD missions continued for a few years after Return to Flight, it prompted NASA to seek out ESA support, which lead to Spacelab's construction by DLR and the flying of German, French and Spanish mission specialists on these missions.
The Shuttle was great for Shuttle-Mir and the ISS missions, but without a space station, the Space Shuttle was useless.
