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>I can see how far you moved the goalposts from space
>it's not that almost everyone who's weighed in has disagreed with me, it's gotta be one poster
Though to answer the original question. The reason why Delta/Atlas/Titan didn't all die out in the 1980s is precisely because every possible mission was moved from the shuttle to one of those platforms. Arianespace only exists because its first rockets were cheaper to develop, build, and operate than the STS (not to mention taking less time to develop and build), and able to deploy multiple satellites in one launch. Arianespace was probably the biggest winner of the horrendously gimped STS that Congress forced upon NASA.
