The space race never pauses for breath, because there is no finishing line. As Colin Ledsome CEng FIED states, even as the first astronauts were walking on the moon, various proposals for a Space Transport System to replace the Apollo/Saturn combination were already on NASA's drawing boards. Onwards and upwards, as the saying goes, and never more so than when designing for spaceflight. When proposals for a Space Transport System (STS) started to capture NASA's attention, one of the leading contenders coupled a winged orbiter with a larger winged booster vehicle that carried most of the fuel and the main engines. The booster was intended to lift an orbiter to a separation level near orbital height before continuing to circle the world and landing back at Kennedy, where a long runway was built to handle it.
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