US military's mysterious X-37B space plane zooms toward orbital record

Re:US military's mysterious X-37B space plane zooms toward o... by nickff on Tuesday June 28, 2022 @07:18PM (#31914364)

MIT did a special course on the Space Shuttle, and one of the lectures was by a historian on the decision to build it: https://ocw.mit.edu/courses/16-885j-aircraft-systems-enginee...

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Re:US military's mysterious X-37B space plane zooms toward o... by orbital-decay on Wednesday June 29, 2022 @02:22AM (#31917065)

This newer research by Bart Hendrickx sheds a new light on the decision. [1] [2] The actual decision to build it was made by engineers, not the party or the paranoid military, and was based on wrong assumptions, like the US military requirements that were already known to be dropped, not making it into the final Shuttle design.

[1] https://www.thespacereview.com/article/3873/1

[2] https://www.thespacereview.com/article/3876/1

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