Why I'm not a Shuttle Fan, Part 2: Dyna-Soar [Amy's Soapbox] 

I once posted a cute video of my dog, and I couldn’t believe the nasty comments. Anonymity seems to bring out the worst in people. You do you, and keep up the good work.

A young person who is enthralled with the halcyon days of the American space program, just like me when I was a pup. Simply wonderful. Thank you!

2:21 Great T-rex impression Amy

Thank you Amy for teaching me all about Dyna-Soar. I've only seen pictures of it and had no idea what it was.

When I was stationed at Luke AFB in the late 80's the Discovery Channel? I think had a program called "Strange Planes". The X Planes was a series they did. I recorded all I could of that show on a VCR which the tapes unfortunately didn't stand the test of time. I grew up in the 60's and 70s so I remember a lot of what you are saying when it happened.

I discovered the Dyna soar (and the X planes, etc) in the late 70's at the local public library. Love that stuff. Currently watching all the vintage space content. Good stuff, thank you.

"Coles Notes". You *are* a Canadian.

And of course the Dyna-Soar brought us the Six Million Dollar Man!! Am I right! :)

I'm not a shuttle fan either. I grew up in the days of the Gemini and Apollo programs. Those were the days!

Great Video Amy. Look, I'm a Shuttle fan, but I can't be angry with you. You have exposed your ideas really clearly and I really appreciate your enthusiast about vintage space. We space enthusiasts shouldn't focus on which vehicle was the best, but more about why we got and where are we going to. Space History is fascinating as you said, and thank you to help me understand it.

The STS was the end product of all of the previous research. It was the "pickup truck" of the space program at that moment. No need to love or hate on it. It was what it was. If you don't want to mention it, that's fine. But it was a part of the history of our space travel and achievements. Kinda like chronicoling rock and roll, but not mentioning Hendrix.. but that's just me...

Back in 1979 my aeronautical engineering major college roommate Peter who co-oped at NASA in Houston brought back a 3 foot stack of paper. It was all of the unclassified blueprints and specifications for the shuttle. We went through the specifications and found two major possible points of failure. One of course was the fragile ceramic tiles and the glue holding them. But the second point of failure thankfully did not happen. If the shuttle had a large payload that took up the entire cargo bay. blocking the access door from the crew compartment (like a few of the larger satellites that were lifted) and the cargo bay doors got stuck partly open, then there was no way to access the manual door opening mechanism, as it was inside the cargo bay. Now the O-Ring issue on the solid fuel boosters did not come up mainly because the change had not been made to silicone O-rings when the specs were printed out, but came a year or two later when too much wear were found on the rings when the boosters were recovered. Now the NASA head Biggs had known about the cold temperature brittleness of the new O-rings and had teams working on a solution, but had placed procedures to not launch if in the previous 48 hours the temperatures measured on the booster rockets had dropped below 48 degrees F. But when he was forced to resign due to what proved to be false allegations a year later when he had his court date (and the case dropped within 48 hours), Congress essentially took over deciding when launches would be, and demanded NASA override his safety procedures. Thus when he saw the weather report, Biggs turned off his TV because he knew his procedures would stop the flight for 48 hours. Several hours later he was shocked to learn that they had launched anyway.

Thanks, Amy, this was fascinating to someone who followed the space program and was launching my own model rockets as a teenager in the 1960s. While I saw the events happening live, I was young, and did not understand the political aspects of what was happening. I'm an engineer now, so I thoroughly enjoy learning the technical details of the amazing stuff I saw as a boy growing up. (My photo here on Facebook was taken in about 1959.)

If you haven't been to the Museum of the US Air Force in Dayton, you should definitely put it on your list. There is a small Dyna-Soar exhibit and there are a ton of historical space exhibits. Went to the museum about 4-5 times per year with my grandparents when I was a kid. I try to go back there every time I get back to Ohio from Houston. I love Dyna-Soar because we got the Shuttle from it :)

Really enjoyed this Amy, thanks for taking the time to put it together. Great channel.

I like this goth-Amy :-) I've seen this before and I don't think I had heard about Dyna-Soar before I saw you talking about it in some video long ago. With any luck, Starship will become what the shuttle never was able to accomplish.

Hi Amy, you are so right and not alone in critique of the shuttle, now or back then. Very interesting to unpick, more about sustaining NASA and that view of space/politics than actually functional. Your contribution is very appreciated, thanks jj

Very would be interested in a deep dive into the plans and systems that came along before somehow ending up with something as self-undermining as the space shuttle Space shuttle apologists don't realize how troubled the design is or don't care

I remember hearing about the Dyna-Soar in the early '60s and I was quite excited. It looked like the shuttles in the concept art for Von Brauns space station. I wondered what ever happened to it. It was the space race. We could only concentrate on the one goal.

Shuttle was amazing. Also, no shuttle, no functioning Hubble.

I'm a child of the Space Age, and for many of us Dyna-Soar wasn't completely dead in 1963. It still had its proponents, and as a kid I thought the future of manned space flight would be the reusable spaceplanes. Of course, in 1968, when we went to see Stanley Kubrick's 2001, we all instantly recognized the embodiment of this idea on the screen in the Pan-Am Space Clipper.

Great presentation. The STS is current (at that time) implementation of technology of previous ideas not realized from Dynasoar & other programs. They current human launch vehicles (Dragon & Starliner) are current technology implementation of the ballistic capsule technology from the 1950-60.

Thanks for the really great history on Dyna-Soar! A whole bunch of things that I didn't know about. All I could remember was that it was supposed to go up on a Titan II, was being sponsored by the Air Force and maybe was part of the line of lifting body aircraft that were also being tested? Where does Dyna-Soar fit in with those ugly birds? Nice to see Pete! (how many people name their pets after astronauts?) and is that a DC-3 necklace?

As a kid, I loved the artist renderings of the Dyna Soar. Great video,

I grew up on the tail end of the shuttle program (2005-2011) and it was possibly the most incredible thing I ever saw, even seeing 124 and 135. Now that I’ve looked into it later on, it definitely was a money drain but it did give us some of the most amazing scientific payloads like Hubble, Galileo, Chandra, and the ISS.

Amy, Don't forget the Shuttle was also sold on its ability to fly a polar orbit. Space Launch Complex 6 (SLC-6, pronounced "Slick Six") at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California was the launch pad and support area. The site was originally developed for the Titan III and MOL, which was cancelled before construction of SLC-6 was complete. The complex was later rebuilt to serve as the west coast launch site for the Space Shuttle, but went unused due to budget, safety and political considerations. SLC-6 mods for the Shuttle cost nearly $6B, but the final Shuttle design would not allow a launch from SLC-6 with any payload.

Another awesome blog. Liked before I watch as I KNOW it's going to be good. Hit like on Amy's videos or Pete the cat will MEOW at you.

"never say never." trust me.

You are right. A Dyna-Soar approach would have avoided all the complications of foam that we had (STS-107!). My father worked on the shuttle and had a hard time with the engineering of it.

Hello, Pete-meeeooow! Him's a sweet kitty! Enjoyed the vid (again), Amy!

I saw an illustration of the proposed Dyna-Soar during Project Mercury while a single-digit grade-schooler. I thought is was incredibly cool, black, and sleek like the ultimate USAF jet fighter. Decades later I researched and wrote an article on the "Flying Flatiron". I received replies to inquiries from Milt Thompson, J. H. Goldie, chief Boeing engineer for the Dyna-Soar, and Leo Sagesser, the helpful archivist for the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum. I interviewed Goldie for several hours, had letter exchanges with Milt Thompson and was allowed to examine in person many hundreds of pages of files and photos in the archives of the Smithsonian in Washington D.C. As with the Dyna-Soar, my freelance article regrettably did not "take off". The Dyna-Soar had progressed to actual cutting of metal and a cadre of test pilots was in training when the budget was cut by Defense Secretary McNamara in December 1963 after a meeting with the Boeing team headed by J.H. Goldie . The extensive pre-flight Dyna-Soar research and wind tunnel data was applied to the shuttle and ultimately validated the re-useable, boost-glide, winged re-entry vehicle concepts of decades previously, including those of the German flight researcher Eugene Sanger prior to World War Two. My conclusion, after the research and interviews, was the Dyna-Soar should have been flown. It was a logical progression from Project Mercury and Gemini and millions of dollars had already been invested. It would have given the United States much improved "Cold War" orbital reconnaissance capability, satellite repair, and a nascent orbital re-supply capability for building of a space station that could have flown much earlier than Skylab in 1973.

I remember being in preschool and was taken with the rest of school to the gym and watching the first shuttle launch. I think the first two launches may have been televised nationally. I don't think it was a recording anyway, thought it was live. I loved the shuttle, but to each their whatevers.

I'm not a shuttle fan either now, although at the time I was impressed with its power. I got to watch one launch and the sound rattled my bones. I too was disappointed when DynaSoar was cancelled. I got to watch it fly as well as the prototypes that tested the aerodynamics.

Amy: What are your thoughts about the Soviet Buran shuttle I'm curious? I loved the idea of the Energia booster myself and its flexibility compared to the STS-stack. Being able to swap out the Buran Orbiter for the Polyus cargo module gave Energia a lot more flexibility. I'm always saddened that it didn't get operational status and only had the one test flight. Seems to me that both the ISS and interplanetary craft could have been much more flexibly built with a combination of Energia-Polyus (cargo) AND Energia-Buran (crew) flights working in tandem. It's a combo that would have allowed optimized separate cargo and crew flights with the same infrastructure without wasting a lot of the dead-weight that the STS (American Shuttle) has to deal with when the primary objective of a mission is cargo.

Costs: My understanding is the costs per flight were trivial by comparison to the cost of keeping the program up and running, so the while the cost of 5 flights per year might be $2B or $400M/flight the cost for 50 flights per year would have been $4B or $80M/fight and not $20B total program cost. $80M to transport 24T to orbit translates to $1666/lb which is a very good price.

First: I have always loved your channel since I discovered it. Also, you have talked with my Apollo astronauts. (Sheer jealousy!) Second: wish I had time to do what you do Third: keep it going. You are one of the most interesting people on the web. To me. You have a good impetus.

Amy, you are 100% correct. The space shuttle was an impressive piece of engineering, but was inherently flawed and dangerous.

Dyna-Soaris a fascinating tale, without enough technical background: internal arrangement, possibilities for orbital missions, and so on. The more I hear of it, the more I want to know. And, of course - KITTYCAT!!!vv

I enjoy listening/learning from your vlog. Keep up the great work

*Food for thoughts:* Soviets launched _20_ Soyuz spacecrafts to Salyut-6 space station in _1313_ days between 1977 to 1981 (18 manned and two autonomos). Space Shuttle at its peak in the 90s could do maximum _27_ launches on a same time range. And after Columbia disaster it did _17_ launches in the same time frame. All this despite the fact that one vehicle is considered as reusable.

I can't believe it took all this time for the YT recommendation engine to pop this onto my radar. Better late than never I guess. I remember reading Bono & Gatland's "Frontiers of Space" as a kid, and fell in love with the DynaSoar back then. I've always been intrigued by 'the path not taken' (like the Nova and the Sea Dragon) and am often struck by new things that seem ....familiar. Is there any DynaSoar - or at least Sanger - DNA in Virgin Galactic's suborbital tourist taxi?

I don't know whether to be impressed or disappointed you didn't go with a "walk the dinosaur" reference in the opening 3 minutes. But I'm definitely glad this came up on my recommended list.

Go Amy, bloody well tell them! plus it's your channel if they don't like maybe they should have own channel, you rock girl luv it

The space shuttle is what i knew growing up, and i was always awe struck when i saw a flight taking off and doing its thing, but, i was never the be all and end all, it is what got me interested in space and then the history of space. People in the comments forget you are a person and feel that can be horrible something most of them would never do in real life to your actual face. Continue doing you, i like you and your content, ignore the haters :D

Old man checking in. I drove my local librarian insane asking for relevant material in the 70's. Back then is was all SAC and the ballistic missile programs and the Navy Fleet Ballistic Missile program. My Grandfather used to take me to the beach to watch the Apollo launches in his IH Scout and I would tell him one day Papa I'm gonna work on those. He laughed and said get better in math boy. I got really interested in the reentry part. Flash forward to my military career and it lines right up with your historical narrative. Our ILS on the Cape was born from Dyna Soar and MOL(Military Orbiting Lab). I work in those very buildings today. You need to keep doing what you are doing. When Columbia burned I was thinking I can't believe we have got away with it this long. When Challenger blew up on ascent I remember thinking that is a fluke. Somebody screwed up. I realize that Columbia was a screw up too but I cannot believe after what we knew after Gemini we went with a limiting technology like shuttle. Maybe I'll take some of your hate off of you for saying that. Keep doing what you do. You are inspiring the future disciplines.

Great and well reasoned. Agreed on shuttle. I can me across DynaSoar reading old NASA ePub.

The shuttle is a death trap. The fact that it was located on the side of the fuel tank is what destroyed 2 of them. It wasn't designed on original specs but based on customer demand. Making it bigger than the original idea. And building a reusable ship was suppose to cut cost. But actually had the opposite effect. I 100% agree with you.the shuttle is not all that

I grew up in the '50s and '60s so I did know about Dyna-Soar. I was sorry it got killed. I also followed the Shuttle from the beginning, and I liked it. But the logic behind it was flawed. A space truck sounds like a good idea but it means launching a very heavy truck just to get the payload in orbit (or beyond).

Your style and content ROCK!! I love the SAME things from the same era for the same reason!

As a vote of confidence, let me say I prefer it when a content creator has a well defined sense of what they want to say that is informed by their distinct personality and preferences. When I think about the creators I like to watch/listen to/read, they all have a unique voice. Although taking feedback from your audience can be good, taken too far it can just lead to mediocrity because a large group of people, by definition, will start driving towards an average. For what it's worth, I prefer for you to maintain your focus. The positive aspect of this episode is that it allowed me to better understand what your focus is. Keep up the good work.

Late to the party here. Interesting content. I first heard of DynaSoar in Major James C. Sparks, 'Winged Rocketry', (Dodd & Mead, 1968, US Lib. Congress No. 68-14245) in the mid 1970s. That book's basically a requiem for the space plane programs the US might've pursued if they'd not gone down the 'canned man' route with Mercury.

X-20 selling point was reconnaissance to have manned photography of the USSR, but by 1962 KV satellites were doing a better job than invisaged so the funding for manned space was going to NASA and USAF money for space was then diverted from manned space to the NRO for recon. The X-20 really had no mission. So strangley the first victim of Carona was the X-20.

To me, the Space Shuttle is a massive case of "missed opportunity". The original concept, had it been implemented as designed, would have been amazing. Less than one month refurbishment between flights, two or three launch sites, a wide variety of mission types. I mean, the original plan called for 500 flights in the first 20 years! It took 3 decades to fly 135 times. Heck, they figured they'd be replacing each individual orbiter after only about 10 years use - yet we were using the original orbiters up until the end. They even were in the process of preparing the first West Coast launch, STS-62A, due for mid 1986. Then the Challenger disaster happened, and half the shuttle plans went out the window. No more West Coast launch site (nor third launch site that was never even properly chosen,) no more putting interplanetary probes in the cargo bay that had their own kick stage (other than a couple that were already in development that COULDN'T be launched by any other launcher.) The Shuttle *should* (could? maybe?) have been amazing. Instead of being the "space pickup truck" it was a space dump truck. (The other major problem was the requirement to use Shuttle to launch satellites that would have made perfect sense to launch on uncrewed rockets.) I loved it as a kid. I went on to college to study aerospace engineering partly because of my fascination with it. But if anything, that showed me just how compromised the Space Shuttle really was.

Good Job on this video. A bit long but a good reminder of all the historical fact that people tend to forget. I agree the Shuttle program was very interesting and there were many unique missions (Hubble repair mission comes to mind) however, the Mercury, Gemini, an Apollo are the most incredible and interesting to date. Just ask anybody if any other humans have landed on the moon since 1972.

I learned about DynaSoar because of you....Thank you!

Does the 'rona have you trimming your own bangs? Lol - love your show, keep it up

Thank you for highlighting the history leading to the shuttle; and the dyna-soar program. I am a former childhood shuttle "fan", I have to say that I completely agree with you that the shuttle was nothing more than Nixon wanting to appear as a space cadet, while, at the same time, wanting to be known as the Republican president who balanced the budget and pandered to the Congress who had been complaining for years about the cost of the space program in general and Project Apollo in particular. The shuttle was over designed and became something it never should have been thanks to the AF canceling the Titan 3 in exchange for them footing part of the bill and the shuttle needing an oversized payload bay to launch AF satellites.

I, too, agree with you about Shuttle. If there is a lasting architecture of space travel, then it must surely be the Soyuz vehicle and the R-7 family of rockets.

I'm reposting this from the last video because I'm on your side... I had the pleasure of watching the shuttle land 5 times in person at Edwards AFB in the "you are nobody party zone" of the east dry lake bed. Wouldn't give that experience up for anything. But I'm with you. Apollo is the jam. Love, love, love Apollo. Those years were a moment in time that will never be repeated. It is vintage, not because of how old but because of the what happened. I inherited family furniture from that era that can't be mistaken for any other time and I love it. It's a little sexist but I was in Florida a few years back and the hotel bar had the window into the pool. I instantly thought of Pete Conrad and the other astronauts. At that moment they could have been sitting next to me. That is vintage. A time gone by that thankfully doesn't exist in the modern shuttle era but in the moment made sense. No matter how old the shuttle gets, it will never live in a time of bars looking into swimming pools. Stay the course because you know what vintage is :)

I would like to edit a feature length documentary series for you!

Actually, I kinda agree that the shuttle sucked up most of the money that could have funded a replacement. I may disagree with some of your other opinions but I concur with that one. I love Dyna-Soar also. Could of, should of, would of, but didn't. The Dyan-Soar was actually superior in many ways...mainly that it was ON TOP of the booster. Hello NASA, R U listening?

I just stare at this lady’s face...she is so pretty!😁

Im with you. It always looked to me like they were launching tanks, fuel, wings, and stuff that wasnt really needed on orbit. Fancy looking but it couldnt even make it to the moon. Or could it ???

What is all the buzz about the micro-shuttles? If they are launched on a expendable rocket, they are just weird-shaped capsules. The main problems with the Shuttle were: Lack of full reusability (it doesn't make much sense to recover just part of the spacecraft, NASA just decided to make the Shuttle cheaper to develop than the original two-stage flyback design, but it was more expensive in the long run), lack of demand (NASA couldn't afford any other program apart from the Shuttle, and nobody else wanted it) and difficult maintenance (making turnarouds longer and more expensive). Fun fact: the Shuttle would require about 40 flights/year to make profit, but was limited by ET production to just 24 flights/year.

I hate the space shuttle too. I grew up with it. I was 9 1/2 years old the first time it flew in space and I can tell you where I was when I watched it launch. But I still hate it. Oh how I wish I could remember the Apollo missions but they ended shortly after I was born. The best memory I have of the Apollo missions is the National Geographic article on Apollo 17 that came out when I was just old enough to appreciate it. (Yes I was an early bloomer and a precocious, many said “gifted”, child. Most people born in 1972 have zero recollection of the space program before the shuttle. I even hated Skylab.)

Something in the Dynasoar design bring forth my inner child. It's so Gi-Joe and cool! It's like a spaceship out of a children's cartoon!

Happy to see Pete again.

The Space Shuttle was a killer system.

Dyna- Soar would have been a stepping stone to an operational Space plane.. It may have had a quicker proposed turnaround time. With Shuttle giving us Hubble and contributing greatly to the ISS.

My dad took me to see X-15 movie in 1962, I was 6. We were both space nutz. Shortly there after, as a 7th birthday gift, he bought me an X-15 model. I love that plane!

Heck if I knew that it ended up in the US space program. I knew everything about the idea and how he was trying to get it built into Germany during the war.... but I never really knew what happened after that. So this was indeed educational. Thanks for that ))

Bowing. Beautiful. We are not worthy. We are not worthy....

Hi, really fantastic video, with a lot of details. Dyna-Soar was simply to complex for the beginning of '60, and the lack of focus in it's use condemned it. But it was anyway a great project. If someone is interested, "Dyna-Soar Hypersonic Strategic Weapons System" from Apogee books is a really great insight in one of the great "what-if" of space history. P.s. and yes: don't listen to the haters 👍🏼 P.p.s. if You read the book from Dennis Jenkins about the history of the Space Shuttle You will fall in love with it 😜

Love your enthusiasm about space, and space flight in general.... yes, the shuttle program was a 'space truck' with NO cargo destination....(at least at first)....You are young....but those of us that lived through the 'congressional' pillaging of the original 'next step into space' have a different take. We saw a huge, huge unwieldy grand plan to 'colonize' space shrink, and shrink and shrink.... you see the shuttle was supposed to be bringing large pieces of a space workshop...for building interplanetary craft, etc. to low earth orbit... (we finally have the current space station). But as it turned out, we had to 'make' the shuttle be the final result, and make it work for all situations....that's why it was a mish-mash in the end. (Just as a side note, take a look at the US situation now....how many plans have been 'scrapped' by congress since the shuttle ended.....i.e. SLS...etc...it's a MESS, and we still can't get a human into space, almost 10 yrs. later). It's hard to look back at ALL the awesome ideas we've had....and not much has come from them....just saying....

Amy, love your talk. Also was aware of and a fan of Dyna Soar. Glad to hear you talk about it.

I built a model Dyna Soar when I was a kid!

It’s crazy the amount of money that’s just simply wasted

Pete Conrad is just adorable! You should get him on more often...😱😂

Dynasoar and Shuttle are Apples and Oranges. Dynasoar was a research craft. Shuttle was supposed to be the bus to a space station that didn't exist until the end of Shuttle's career.

Hi Amy.Great channel and works. How do you feel about the 'private' launches to space/low earth orbit,post shuttle program? (ie Virgin Galactic,SpaceX etc?)

And...with Boeing and SpaceX we're back to ballistic capsules, while SpaceX even knows how to do powered landings from near orbit. (Yeah, return from orbit is a lot harder but, still...)

Without Dyna-Soar we wouldn't have the Six Million Dollar Man.

It's strange to me that the reason for not liking the space shuttle is that you adore it's predecessor. Particularly given that that predecessor was hampered by a failed program. I'm surprised you wouldn't have seen the space shuttle as a living homage to Dyna soar? It sounds like you never got what you wanted out of the Dyna Soar program, but the space shuttle came as close to manifesting all of those things as has ever happened. Seems just a tad on the hipster end to say "I hate X because Y (that never even quite existed) way already doing it before it was cool". Oh well. Still love your channel, I'm here for the cool space chats, which is why I listened to these long videos :) keep on keepin on

Great content. And bonus points for using the word 'flotilla'. Not heard that one for ages. Keep it up.

Not actually sure when I first heard about dyna-soar; maybe it was her on your channel or Scott Manley's channel; or maybe in a collab with you two? (Didn't you talk about it in a collab video once?) But I might have seen pictures of it in my nerdy childhood in kids space books as it looked familiar the first time I saw it on RU-vid.

I have never heard of is, but that was awesome.

I remember going to the library as a kid in the early 70s and getting books on space and aerodynamics that showed the Dyna-soar and several other abandoned projects. Even then, I was very disappointed that they had been stopped. I remember my teachers telling us in elementary school that ours would be the first generation to travel to space and live and work in space. We were supposed to have developed communities on the moon by 2000 and be on Mars by 2020. Well, once America and the USSR ended their political dick swinging contest, most advances and developments stopped, or at least slowed down and changed their focus from exploration to surveillance and other things. And in Washington, the extended era of political infighting began, which stifled all developments as every administration wants nothing more than to tear down anything done by previous admins. This shortsightedness guarantees that money is burnt and long term goals are never reached. I remember as an older kid and college student hating the space shuttle for what it represented, a sellout. We gave up exploration and the development of our society to just build a glorified, overly complicated space truck the did little but keep the status quo. Sure it was instrumental in constructing the ISS, and it did a few launches and recoveries of satellites, but we could have done so much more by that time if people had just kept their eye on the horizon instead of petty politics. I hope with the new systems being developed by private companies that we once more can enter a time of exploration and advancement.

The heck is wrong with people being walnuts cause of your opinion on shuttles, I'm just glad you're back and making video's!

You pronounced Sänger's name absolutely correctly. (But I think the stress is on the first syllable of "Oberth", not the second)

Now we have the direct descendent, Dream Chaser.

Happy to hear DynaSoar promoted and even more so to see you keep coming back despite the trolls off-loading their nonsense on you. Good job!!

I love your passsssion! Forget people who say you're wrong about your opinion and keep feeding us way too much information about cool space shit :D

Have you been to the national museum of the United States Air Force? I highly recommend seeing their collection of lifting body test objects.

Great video, Amy, really interesting.

Fun fact... The "SPACE SHUTTLE" was approved by President Nixon during the last APOLLO "MOON WALK" in 1972.

The Shuttle was simply the vehicle needed for the time. I considered it the pickup truck of space vehicles. But, my question to you is, have you seen “For All Mankind” on Apple?

I love the shuttle.

I absolutely love the STS, irrationally, and I still enjoyed your video on why you’re not a fan. People have to stop identifying with the things they like and stop feeling personally attacked when someone argues against them. Well done on both videos. 👍🏻

The shuttle was practical for it's designed purpose exploration wasn't one of them

I heard of DynaSour before, years ago. I was is disappointed that it was taken and blown up into the Space Shuttle (Aerospace Orbital Pickup Truck) project. It went from a USAF thoroughbred pedigree to a Clydesdale workhorse domain in the course of about 15 years or so. Redesigned by committee as it were, is always a bad move. It went from doing one thing well (maybe) to doing 30 things not so well or evidently disasterously. It was never meant to be a school bus obviously, or a school classroom, nor VIP transport. NASA cut corners after tacking on many add-ons that distracted from its original purpose. That always leads to bad outcomes - and in this case deaths.