> The shuttle did something nobody had done before Put spy satellites into orbit and then later retrieve them? That's not to be critical, but we could have d

> The shuttle did something nobody had done before Put spy satellites into orbit and then later retrieve them? That's not to be critical, but we could have done much of the scientific and space station work with a different platform and likely had a much lower mission failure rate. The design of the shuttle wasn't solely about this criteria, though.