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The large overriding reason the shuttle had wings is so that it could land "cross range", i.e. divert to land either left or right of the flight path. This way
by tankenmate 10y ago
The large overriding reason the shuttle had wings is so that it could land "cross range", i.e. divert to land either left or right of the flight path. This way if there was a transatlantic abort landing (TAL) required the Space Shuttle could land in Spain, Portugal, France, Diego Garcia (and in varying years Gambia, Nigeria and a few others). This was a requirement if the shuttle was launching with a classified payload (i.e. NRO satellite).[0]
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_space_shuttle_landing_sites https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_space_shuttle_landing_...
- mikeash 10y agoThe Air Force also wanted to be able to launch the Shuttle on a polar orbit out of Vandenberg, do a single orbit, and land back at Vandenberg on the next pass. The idea was that if there was a critical mission for the Shuttle (capturing or disabling a Soviet satellite, for example) and the Soviets were in a shootin' mood, this would minimize the window of risk to the mission. Of course, the Earth rotates underneath the Shuttle while it's in orbit, so when the Shuttle comes back around in a polar orbit it's quite some distance to the west of the launch site, so it needs to be able to make significant maneuvers for this to work. Vandenberg never ended up hosting Shuttle launches, of course. It was nearly ready, with mission planned and everything, when Challenger exploded. This caused a reevaluation of the whole idea, and it ended up being scrapped. But the design consequences remained part of the vehicle until the end.