re: #144 William Barnett-Lewis

The Soviets were baffled by our shuttle program - they knew it made no economic sense so they knew (correctly) that it had to be about military missions, especially the huge spy sats we use.

That’s not entirely accurate.
Even though there were space shuttle flights with military missions/cargo (two of the most well known being STS-51-C, and STS-36), there were only a total of eleven such flights - and the last military launch occurred in December, 1992 - while the shuttle continued launching missions for another nineteen years.

The US military as a rule uses Titan III class launch vehicles for the bulk of their satellites.