I don’t know if the programme makers were quoting an actual exchange, but it certainly range true.

I did, indeed, say that the military was required to use the STS for payload delivery. You argue that this evidence of military use of the Shuttle strengthens the case for the “military test gone wrong” theory.  You appear to suggest that my mocking statements are in contradiction to my factual statements about the Shuttle’s early years.

The thing is, I never said “Ha ha, the military has never used the Space Shuttle,” or anything similar.  So, no, those statements are not contradictory on that point.  

You, however, cannot claim that the Shuttle’s DoD history gives any substance to your theory.  I could just as easily say “NASA sent some chimps into Space, and I heard that one of the chimps was injected with intelligence tonic and became really smart and could have cured cancer but the drug companies wanted to sell their cancer drugs so they got NASA to hush it up.  It’s true because they did send chimps into Space, and drug companies have done things that put profit ahead of helping sick people.”  

Chimps in Space + case histories of unethical drug company behaviour does not necessarily mean that a drug company hushed up the cancer-curing space monkey genius.  

Columbia was destroyed, yes. DoD satellites have been launched by the Space Shuttle, yes. An Israeli astronaut was aboard Columbia, yes.  Governments have secretly done horrible things, sometimes with the best intentions but horrible unintended consequences, yes.

Is there any combination of those verifiable facts that makes “Israeli astronaut tests military thing during reentry and makes Shuttle explode, conspiracy to keep it quiet” more likely than, or even nearly as likely as, “Shuttle wing leading edge appears to impact small amount of foam, sensors record increased heat loads on same wing during reentry, material failure-by-impact reproducible in lab without invoking angels, documented evidence of improper risk assessment standards at NASA”???

As far as “NASA mission planning binders full of stuff that never makes the news,” I’m sure that the overwhelming majority of stuff in those mission planning binders never makes the news.  If you find mention of genius space chimps taking smart potions, non-American-citizen astronauts doing risky military tests during reentry, or something of equivalent gravity, do let me know.  Until then, your appeal to authority carries as much weight as the man on the street corner telling me about his private chats with Jesus Christ.  I’m not saying he’s wrong.  I’m not saying you’re wrong.  I’m not saying that I dislike either of you or that I think you’re bad people.  I’m saying that you are both lacking credible evidence and that your dialogue reminds me of paranoid psychosis patients I have known, although I do not suggest that you yourself have such a condition.

And I don’t think I covered your whole argument.  I’m going to bed.  

I have to imagine if the shuttle were still flying and this happened today, SpaceX would be like, “hey, NASA, we got this.”

Hey, how about we save money by launching spy sats on that government truck?  

Great idea!  In fact, let’s mandate that the military must use the little truck.  They want to keep their wasteful, single-use boosters, but we’ll show them!

Great idea!  Wait.  Your payloads are how big?  Oh.  Alright, well let’s just scale up our truck a bit.  It shouldn’t affect the economics or the engineering that much.

Sounds good.  Glad we’re all using off-the-shelf tech from Apollo et al. and not having to redesign entire systems from scratch or do all sorts of materials research.  That sort of thing could make our scheduling and cost projections pure fiction.  Ha ha.

Ya.  Funny thing about that…  

Perhaps it was an NWO plan, carried out by the IDF, to deploy chemtrails over the USA and infect rational people with Morgellon’s Disease to stop the spread of free energy since HAARP rendered the Montauk Project’s mind control ineffective.

Now, if you don’t mind, I’ve got to check my fluoridated vril levels before my black helicopter flight to Bilderberg.  Ta.

The military was a really big fan of the STS… Having to kill a bunch of their own booster and orbiter programs, redesign their satellites to fit into the Shuttle’s bay, figure out how to launch those same Shuttle-spec satellites when it became obvious that STS couldn’t meet the launch schedule or projected costs, giving ground to a civilian organization, etc. etc.

I haven’t seen that WW episode.  Where did they launch this “military space shuttle” from?  The only DoD shuttle facility I know of was SLC-6 at Vandenberg, and it was never used for such a purpose.

What’s that?  On TV you say?  Not real life?  Sorry, I was reminiscing about my space nerd days.

you can include the shuttle resources here too… not that it matters, unfortunately

This is one of the bitter ironies of the loss of Columbia. Given the focus by the early 2000s on constructing the ISS, STS-107 was only the second mission in 16 flights not to be headed there. For that matter, other than the next expected Hubble servicing mission, I’m not sure if there were any other non-ISS flights manifested. Had the wing damage occurred on almost any other mission, it would have been noted as soon as the Shuttle arrived at the ISS, and the crew would have stayed there until subsequent rescue. (it would still have been rather hairy, as the ISS wasn’t intended to support ten occupants for any length of time, but at least three of those could have returned by Soyuz straight away and the Progress automated resupply mission in early February could probably have been reloaded with essential consumables.

The CAIB determined that a rescue mission, though risky, might have been possible provided NASA management had taken action soon enough.[48][49] They stated that had NASA management acted in time, two possible contingency procedures were available: a rescue mission by shuttle Atlantis, and an emergency spacewalk to attempt repairs to the left wing thermal protection.

Normally a rescue mission is not possible, due to the time required to prepare a shuttle for launch, and the limited consumables (power, water, air) of an orbiting shuttle. However, Atlantis was well along in processing for a planned March 1 launch on STS-114, and Columbia carried an unusually large quantity of consumables due to an Extended Duration Orbiter package. The CAIB determined that this would have allowed Columbia to stay in orbit until flight day 30 (February 15). NASA investigators determined that Atlantis processing could have been expedited with no skipped safety checks for a February 10 launch. Hence if nothing went wrong there was a five-day overlap for a possible rescue. As mission control could deorbit an empty shuttle but could not control the orbiter’s reentry and landing, it would likely have sent Columbia into the Pacific Ocean;[48] NASA later developed the Remote Control Orbiter system to permit mission control to land a shuttle. Docking at the International Space Station for use as a safe haven while awaiting rescue (or to use the Soyuz to systematically ferry the crew to safety) would have been impossible due to the different orbital inclination of both vehicles.

NASA investigators determined on-orbit repair by the shuttle astronauts was possible but risky, primarily due to the uncertain resiliency of the repair using available materials.[48][49] Columbia did not carry the Canadarm, or Remote Manipulator System, which would normally be used for camera inspection or transporting a spacewalking astronaut to the wing. Therefore an unusual emergency extra-vehicular activity (EVA) would have been required. While there was no astronaut EVA training for maneuvering to the wing, astronauts are always prepared for a similarly difficult emergency EVA to close the external tank umbilical doors located on the orbiter underside, which is necessary for reentry. Similar methods could have reached the shuttle left wing for inspection or repair.[48]

For the repair, the CAIB determined the astronauts would have to use tools and small pieces of titanium, or other metal, scavenged from the crew cabin. These metals would help protect the wing structure and would be held in place during re-entry by a water-filled bag that had turned into ice in the cold of space. The ice and metal would help restore wing leading edge geometry, preventing a turbulent airflow over the wing and therefore keeping heating and burn-through levels low enough for the crew to survive re-entry and bail out before landing. Since the NASA team could not verify that the repairs would survive even a modified re-entry, the rescue option had a considerably higher chance of bringing Columbia’s crew back alive.[48]”

That’s of Wikipedia.