3 ms·
It's all the Shuttle the military needs
by none_to_remain 3y ago
It's all the Shuttle the military needs
- maxerickson 3y agoAir force participation increased the design size of the space shuttle.
- NikkiA 3y agoOnly because they thought they were going to be deploying pre-KH11 satellites that needed film/equipment retrieval/renewal.
- wkat4242 3y agoI thought it was more to actually launch the newer keyholes and to bring them back in case of repair. After all one of those cost as much as an aircraft carrier, you don't want to scrap one for a minor problem.
- NikkiA 3y agoKH-11 was cheaper than KH-9 by far ($3B vs $16B inflation adjusted, both for 20 satellites), each KH-9 had 4 re-entry vehicles, so you could only really do 4 passes per satellite before needing a new one (or some way to replace the module that housed the RVs). It's likely that 'we might need to bring them back...' was justification for USAF remaining as a voice in the shuttle program after KH-11 rendered the satellite fleet reusable, though.
- bombcar 3y agoThe shuttle was made big enough to retrieve X-37b. Ignore the dates, they have time travel, too.
- dylan604 3y agoYes, moving all of the shuttles into museums was just a to fake out the Russians. I'm pretty sure when JFK retuns to Dallas, he's returning in a shuttle