One can hold the view that the design was affected by concerns that had little to do with the missions the vehicle actually performed and consequently locked hu

One can hold the view that the design was affected by concerns that had little to do with the missions the vehicle actually performed and consequently locked human space exploration to low earth orbit for 30 years. http://m.space.com/12166-space-shuttle-program-cost-promises-209-billion.html http://m.space.com/12166-space-shuttle-program-cost-promises... Shuttle was locked to low earth orbit due to design reacting to concerns that were never realized. It was anything but cheap. It was ill suited as a vehicle of human space exploration. It did lots of valuable things but it can be argued I understand that those things could have been achieved cheaper and better.