/sci/ - Science & Math

>>14607992
a smaller spaceplane for space station logistics would have had its own problems but yeah, that would've probably been the best realistic outcome. for most of the '60s NASA seems to have assumed that was going to be the next step after apollo, but once the saturn program got killed a lot of the guys decided they just needed to jump straight into full reusability. even then there were some guys who saw that shuttle was going to be a bridge too far in an era of shrinking budgets (e.g. von braun, who had a much better understanding of american politics than most americans in nasa), but they got bowled over in the frenzy of shuttle fever.

i agree that propulsive landing was probably doable back then, and in an ideal world we could have started work on it in 1970, but nobody in positions to make decisions believed in it at the time so it's just not a realistic scenario.

who's gonna slurp for MURP