[staytrue]

fyi, before the shuttle was grounded, many of its missions were military. Also, the shuttle would have been a smaller , less expensive craft, except that the military wanted it modified for their use.

[.cnI redruM]

Certainly, but the shuttle also had other purposes as well. The shuttle would never have been funded had it's sole purpose been to gather exospheric military intelligence.

The satalite imagery you see from GOES 7 and GOES 8 is partially the result of shuttle launches as well as the AGS monitoring of the O3 hole.