[George W. Bush]

Not true. DSP launches have been accomplished using Titans. Civil access to space will be extremely curtailed for the near term. Back when Challenger went down the military, who had been forced into all eggs in one basket strategy, created a policy of Shuttle/Expendable capabilities. Miltary ability to launch assets is intact.

I wasn't aware of it though I knew the military was never satisfied that, in order to justify shuttle costs, they were forced to put their birds on the shuttle. I thought the "black launches" of the shuttle were to carry the 20-ton+ KH spy birds. I know there was a period where we couldn't replace aging KH birds until the shuttle was back in service. I was concerned because we never have very many of the big birds up at one time and we are anticipating imminent military action in Iraq.

[Inspectorette]

In April of 1986, just four months after the Challenger disaster, a Titan 34D blew up at launch at Vandenberg Air Force Base. This grounded the Titan program for years.