Re: Challenger

On 6/11/2024 10:58 AM, Martin Brown wrote:

ISTR at least one Morton Thiokol engineer was begging them not to launch with it so cold but was over ruled by more senior people in the end.
 Rocket launches and landings are intrinsically dangerous. On this I am inclined to agree with JL - unless and until we find something that our robotic and AI kit cannot do we shouldn't be sending people into space.
 It was the *only* way to explore the moon back in 1969 but not any more...
 

The shuttle was a dual-use vehicle, it could've made a formidable weapon in a pinch. The Soviets thought so, at least.
The large crossrange from the delta wings made once-around space bomber missions north from Vandenburg feasible, though IIRC they never launched from there.
The DOD didn't "force" the delta wings, exactly, crossrange was a desire of theirs that NASA eventually came around to as beneficial in general, it made another abort mode possible and simplified design calculations/simulations to be tractable with the tech available at the time.
But it's likely if they couldn't have come to a path of convergent evolution then the project wouldn't have gone forward at all.