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Yeah, that's just mythology. The concept doesn't work out. The shuttle did have a military requirement: the air force wanted to be able to launch into an orbit

Yeah, that's just mythology. The concept doesn't work out. The shuttle did have a military requirement: the air force wanted to be able to launch into an orbit over the south pole, then up across Russia from the south, to return and land after that single orbit. That pretty much forced the use of wings that could glide, vs capsule style re-entry, and opened the path to most of the shuttle's design flaws. As for why the air force wanted this, the presumption is surveillance, but I don't think they've ever officially answered, other than denying that they ever considered a bomber mission for the shuttle.

m4rtink 6y ago
IIRC the requirement was to be able to snatch a Soviet satellite & land wit it in less then one orbit. Here it is demonstrated in KSP (with a SSTO, not shuttle though): https://youtu.be/pFCQEgnKwdY https://youtu.be/pFCQEgnKwdY On the other hand Soviets were reportedly scared to death of shuttle starting on a "normal" mission only to use it's wings and heat shield to dip into the atmosphere and change it's inclination, so that the new orbit passes directly over Moscow, from an unexpected angle. Then it would drop a 20 ton worth of RVs with nukes in a decapitation strike without any warning. It is estimated that this is one of the reasons why the Energie & Buran program were started - they also wanted part of the "fun".