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Re:Barack Obama: America Will Take the Giant Leap to Mars by Diederich on Tuesday October 11, 2016 @11:07AM (#12685054)
Right. You can google up the references, but a lot of the shuttle's design problems came from morphing it into a platform that could service military needs.

Its liftoff mass was 2/3 of the moon-bound Saturn V stack!

Make no mistake, I will hold deep, deep nostalgia for the Space Shuttle, but its failings were largely driven by 'irrelevant' military size and lift requirements. At the same time, I also understand that much of the money for the whole space-race, including the shuttle, effectively existed because of various military/'defense' priorities.

Re:Barack Obama: America Will Take the Giant Leap to Mars by Roboprog on Tuesday October 11, 2016 @11:35AM (#12685341)
E.g. - recovering film from spy satellites.

Sometime around the time the shuttle went live, the military discovered CCD or similar cameras and encryption.

The "Keyhole" satellites used to parachute down film canisters, which would be scooped up by a plane while descending on the chute - caught in-flight to avoid capture by other nations.

Re:Barack Obama: America Will Take the Giant Leap to Mars by fail2fail2ban on Tuesday October 11, 2016 @11:58AM (#12685591)
Recover material from asteroids much?