Current Events > "The military shuttle Discovery just landed." Uh, what?

(+) Yeah! (+)

https://youtu.be/xnzrxcL_E64
@30 seconds in.

The military shuttle Discovery?

Thats a new one on me. Was this a common saying at the time? Ive never once heard the space shuttles referred to as military shuttles.

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https://www.space.com/34522-secret-shuttle-missions.html

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The shuttle program was co-opted by the military fairly early on. This has never been a secret.

Questionmarktarius posted...

The shuttle program was co-opted by the military fairly early on. This has never been a secret.

Yeah, but Ive still never heard a newscaster say the military shuttle.

STS-51C Discovery (Launched Jan. 24, 1985)

Little is known about STS-51C's payload officially besides this terse line on the NASA website: "The U.S. Air Force Inertial Upper Stage (IUS) booster was deployed and met the mission objectives."
Multiple sources suggest that the satellite deployed was called Magnum/ORION ELINT, a signals intelligence program about which little is known. Before launch, no pre-flight commentary was available until nine minutes before liftoff a first in the shuttle program.

I mean, of course the military was using the shuttle to occasionally deploy spy satellites. But Ive still never heard of anyone referring to the shuttle as a military vehicle. This newscast makes it sound like the Discovery exclusively belongs to the Air Force.

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