I think the SS was more of a cold war show tool. Yes it was not that practical, but it does look good, and appears to show that you have superority in the space race.
So from a space exploration aspect, it was not all that helpful, from a geo-political aspect it worked better. Now with the cold war ended, it’s benifit in that role is non-existant, so we are left with it’s only other role, that of space exploration, which was only a minor part of it’s design protocol. No wonder it is not really serving us so well anymore.
I once heard that the Shuttle as originally designed was much smaller. But the military insisted on a much larger cargo compartment, to be able to hold certain military space equipment.
The enlarging of the cargo compartment, and the whole shuttle, and the increase in weight this caused, leading to increased fuel requirements to ascend, and increased heat while descending, all contribute to the marginal performance of the shuttle.
Had it been kept at the orginal design size, it would have performed much better. And been much cheaper to operate.
I don’t have a specific cite for this; I would appreciate it if someone posted one.
Perhaps you can, but I really can’t. The cold war has been over for quite some time, and the threat that China poses only started when we gave them the tech to orbit, which was in the mid (late?) 90’s. So there were many years that we shot things into space w/o a need to look superior.
I personally beleive that it is man’s destany to explore and colonize mars, which is what I feel is driving it’s exploration. I could accept your statement about the return to the moon, under the threat of China, but it is also a safer testing ground for a mars mission (safer being a quicker return to earth if needed). Also the moon is a rich source of He3, which is basically non-existant on earth, and some have stated could be a enormanse energy source (enough to justify shipping it to earth), so there is perhaps a national interest in it.