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"...Then why did we waste all this time and money on the stupid shuttle program?..."

Well, the answer you would get from a NASA type would follow these lines:

(1) Having a space station would make journeys to the Moon and Mars a lot easier, so we want a space station in Low Earth Orbit (LEO) to serve as a very local staging / construction platform.

(2) To make the Station economically feasible, we need to lower the cost of getting to LEO, and planners at the time thought that a re-usable "space truck" could lower costs.

(3) Designed by committee, and optimized for no single purpose, the shuttle turned into an over-weight, under powered disappointment, and was never able to meet it's targets for cost and re-usability.

Frankly, right now, what we need is a fleet of reliable, big dumb boosters.