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It makes you wonder what a shuttle program unencumbered by political compromise would look like.

A space station on an orbit where it could be used as a way station for manned exploration further afield.

I seem to recall that one of the drags on the Shuttle's performance was the Air Force insistence on a larger cargo bay and requirement that it be able to reach polar orbit.

I go into this a bit in the article. The worst thing about the polar requirement is that it means adding 1000 miles of cross-range gliding capability to something that really, really, really doesn't like to glide.

Like SpaceX maybe?

SpaceX is benefiting from NASA figuring out what works and what doesn't work. I don't think they could be as cheap as they are without that knowledge.

But the space program would certainly look differently. the Space Shuttle would have looked much different too.

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