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Comment by nxobject | Hacker News Reader

Given the military heritage of the Space Shuttle, I imagine this is what a hypothetical next generation civilian Space Shuttle might have looked like, too.

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Given the constraints of reaching orbit, surviving reentry, and cross-range capabilities there's a general lack of variability in spacecraft design. Some of us are old enough to remember promotional/propaganda materials concerning the original Boeing X-20 "Dyna-Soar" engineering designs from the 1950s which strongly resemble the subsequent US Space Shuttle, the Soviet Buran orbiter, and the Boeing X-37B and X-40:

<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_X-20_Dyna-Soar>

I recall reading that the Space Shuttle was a big improvement on Dynasoar. Perhaps that the Dynasoar was not a true "lifting body" ?

FYI I'm not familiar with this nor could I find anything. If you could surface a reference I'd be interested in details.

Something I read a long time ago. No reference.

No worries, thanks.

How big is the payload bay on this thing? The whole craft is only 29 feet long, so it's not carrying a Hubble in to orbit.

The NRO doesn't need this thing to lift its birds into orbit. Keyhole satellites have gotten rides on Deltas and Titans, so probably going to be sticking their thumbs out in the direction of SpaceX pretty soon.

Already have, SpaceX have been doing a few NRO launches. Delta and Titan are retired, and Atlas is down to its last few.

Great, but I specifically said Keyhole from which Hubble was a descendant. Which Keyhole bird was launched by SpaceX?

None, but that's why they said soon. I'm sure a modified FH or Starship could get deploy this hardware. The last launch of in 2022 on a Delta IV Heavy.

No, I said soon. The person I replied to said "already have".

Are there any books to read that talk about the military missions of the Space Shuttle?

Most missions are still classified but some information on general shuttle sources, into the black book and space above us podcast are interesting sources.

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