Sort of related: The Shuttle was designed for military use, but mainly regarding launching and capturing spy satellites. From a NASA report on the Space Shuttle

Sort of related: The Shuttle was designed for military use, but mainly regarding launching and capturing spy satellites. From a NASA report on the Space Shuttle's history ( https://www.nasa.gov/history/sts1/pages/scota.html https://www.nasa.gov/history/sts1/pages/scota.html ): > One Air Force requirement that had a critical effect on the Shuttle design was cross range capability. The military wanted to be able to send a Shuttle on an orbit around the Earth's poles because a significant portion of the Soviet Union was at high latitudes near the Arctic Circle. The idea was to be able to deploy a reconnaissance satellite, retrieve an errant spacecraft, or even capture an enemy satellite, and then have the Shuttle return to its launch site after only one orbit to escape Soviet detection. Because the Earth rotates on its axis, by the time the Shuttle would return to its base, the base would have "moved" approximately 1,100 miles to the east. Thus the Shuttle needed to be able to maneuver that distance "sideways" upon reentering the atmosphere. > In addition to the Air Force's cross range demand, the military also wanted a larger Shuttle payload bay than NASA originally advocated. NASA wanted the Shuttle payload bay to accommodate modules for a future space station, which necessitated a payload capacity of approximately 50,000 pounds. The Air Force wanted a bay 15 x 60 feet that could hold 50,000 to 65,000 pounds and that had doors that could open out into space to deploy satellites easily. This payload requirement meant that the fuselage of the Shuttle needed to be essentially a large rectangular box with rounded surfaces. In general, NASA went with the Air Force's requirements because it needed the Air Force's support to help insulate it from the political charge that the Shuttle was really just a step towards human exploration of Mars or a permanent space station, which is precisely what some people at NASA wanted it to be. The Air Force was working on a Shuttle launch site at Vandenberg AFB in California, but after the Challenger disaster they decided that the Shuttle wasn't reliable enough and opted to instead use traditional disposable rockets to launch spy satellites.