> The Space Shuttle was a political football whose design was dictated by the whims of Congress and the meddling of the military first, and by engineering secon

> The Space Shuttle was a political football whose design was dictated by the whims of Congress and the meddling of the military first, and by engineering second. Partly true, but keep in mind that was a problem NASA brought on themselves. They chose an overly ambitious design which congress, rightfully in my opinion, balked at. They tried to skip technological generations, which is a nono in R&D and always a very expensive and risky prospect. Instead of coming up with a new idea they doubled down on their fantasy, turning the Shuttle idea into a political juggernaut. And they got their way, they got massive buy in into the Shuttle, by selling it to everyone as the be-all-end-all of everyone's space dreams. It would be all things to all customers: NASA manned spaceflight, NASA space science, commercial satellite companies, even the military. But part of the cost of that political juggernaut was imposition of additional design elements, which brought more compromises. But on the other hand with so many people on board the program had political inevitability and was almost impossible to shut down. The Shuttle would already have been a bit of a turkey relative to its promises but those additional compromises made it one of the most expensive and troublesome launchers in history. But those compromises came about because of the unwillingness of the Shuttle's original backers to consider other options, they made those deals and those compromises and they were forced to live with the consequences.