Errr, not exactly. Without wandering into the weeds of the other subthread, NASA managed to get a mandate that the shuttle would be the sole method of putting

Errr, not exactly. Without wandering into the weeds of the other subthread, NASA managed to get a mandate that the shuttle would be the sole method of putting US satellites into orbit. Forget about the wartime requirements or desires, this meant that anything the military wanted to put into a polar orbit would have to be done by the shuttle, naturally launching from Vandenberg. Going from memory of what I've read in the last few days, and of what went into the decision, one factor was the shuttle ended up 20% overweight, and the higher energy requirements for polar orbit launches resulted in a plan for lighter filament-wound instead of steel SRBs: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Shuttle_Solid_Rocket_Booster#Filament-wound_cases https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Shuttle_Solid_Rocket_Boo... and of course the Challenger disaster helped people to realize just how dangerous the SRB concept was to begin with. Post Challenger, during the Shuttle fleet's 3 year grounding, a hard look was taken at what was needed to bring SLC-6 up to spec (see end of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SLC-6#Space_Shuttle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SLC-6#Space_Shuttle), and NASA was no longer in a position to force the Air Force to use the shuttle. Which the latter had always thought unwise and the disaster proved to all who could see.