Astronauts going crazy would appear to be Hollywood over dramatic however, as far back as Mercury, We had Scott Carpenter defy mission control landing over 100 miles off target. He never flew again. Borman and Lovel almost mutinied spending 14 days in a Gemini Capsule driven to the limits of human endurance. Then we had the crew of Apollo 7 mutiny. Borman and Lovel were given a break and continued flying but the Apollo 7 crew never flew again. Once again, Skylab had a crew mutiny. I believe they never flew again. And most recently, a female Astronaut went completely off her rocker after an affair on the ISS went sour. She deliberately tossed a tool bag out creating more space junk, broke the toilets, and drilled holes in the hull of a Soyuz Spacecraft so the Astronauts going crazy in the series is closer to reality as one would hope for
Using the Shuttle has a lunar ferry would have been a waste. There are those who believe wings is space is wasteful but wings to the Moon would be taking that wastefulness to the next degree. It might have been possible to load most if not all of the payload bay for additional fuel for the OMS engines making Lunar flight possible. The wings would have enabled the Shuttle to glide in a shallower angle and survive lunar velocity re entry so it might have been possible for the Shuttle to be a Lunar ferry
Had the Shuttle been developed under this alternate history, It would more than likely uses the S-!C Saturn 5 first stage and a smaller ET with no SRB's. The S-1C would have been re usable fly back allowing not only for the Shuttle but the S-5 would have continued launching heavy payloads
Advocates of Apollo believe the Shuttle would never have been developed under these circumstances but instead, NASA would have continued retro spam canning with Apollo
Astronauts going crazy would appear to be Hollywood over dramatic however, as far back as Mercury, We had Scott Carpenter defy mission control landing over 100 miles off target. He never flew again. Borman and Lovel almost mutinied spending 14 days in a Gemini Capsule driven to the limits of human endurance. Then we had the crew of Apollo 7 mutiny. Borman and Lovel were given a break and continued flying but the Apollo 7 crew never flew again. Once again, Skylab had a crew mutiny. I believe they never flew again. And most recently, a female Astronaut went completely off her rocker after an affair on the ISS went sour. She deliberately tossed a tool bag out creating more space junk, broke the toilets, and drilled holes in the hull of a Soyuz Spacecraft so the Astronauts going crazy in the series is closer to reality as one would hope for
Firing the NERVA engine inside the atmosphere would be an environmental disaster
Using the Shuttle has a lunar ferry would have been a waste. There are those who believe wings is space is wasteful but wings to the Moon would be taking that wastefulness to the next degree. It might have been possible to load most if not all of the payload bay for additional fuel for the OMS engines making Lunar flight possible. The wings would have enabled the Shuttle to glide in a shallower angle and survive lunar velocity re entry so it might have been possible for the Shuttle to be a Lunar ferry
Had the Shuttle been developed under this alternate history, It would more than likely uses the S-!C Saturn 5 first stage and a smaller ET with no SRB's. The S-1C would have been re usable fly back allowing not only for the Shuttle but the S-5 would have continued launching heavy payloads
Advocates of Apollo believe the Shuttle would never have been developed under these circumstances but instead, NASA would have continued retro spam canning with Apollo