What Goes Around, Comes Around

[pmcray]

Check out this URL

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2001/8004.easterbrook-fulltext.html

Interesting article from 1980. Actually, the shuttle did recover at least one satellite if I remember correctly.

Comments

[pmcray.livejournal.com]

Hubble was designed to be serviced by the shuttle. Interestingly, the Next Generation Space Telescope is to be in a much larger orbit and thus won't be serviceable.

One of the USAF requirements was that the shuttle had to be able to do single polar orbit put-ups out of Vandenberg and have enough lateral range to get back to Edwards. Of course, the shuttle was never launched from Vandenberg (Mark Wade suggests it would have been destroyed by the over-pressure generated in the launch silo), so that constraint placed unnecessary limits on the shuttle. I'm pretty sure there are no USAF flights anymore. I doubt there's much a spaceplane can do that U2s and Auroras plus drones can't do.