Saturn-Shuttle and reusing the tanks and other hardware for later flights). The Shuttle would handle space station logistics, while Saturn V would launch components. This would have allowed the International Space Station, using a Skylab or Mir configuration with both U.S. and Russian docking ports, to have been lifted with just a handful of launches. The Saturn-Shuttle concept also would have eliminated the Space Shuttle Solid Rocket Boosters that ultimately precipitated the Space Shuttle "Challenger" accident in 1986. Because the shuttle orbiter would be riding piggyback on the external tank, and the need to prevent damage to the delicate thermal protection
Space Shuttle in an emergency, the orbiter was loaded atop the Shuttle Carrier Aircraft, a modified 747, for transport back to the Kennedy Space Center, landing at the Shuttle Landing Facility. Once at the Shuttle Landing Facility, the orbiter was then towed along a tow-way and access roads normally used by tour buses and KSC employees to the Orbiter Processing Facility where it began a months-long preparation process for the next mission. NASA preferred Space Shuttle landings to be at Kennedy Space Center. If weather conditions made landing there unfavorable, the Shuttle could delay its landing until conditions are favorable, touch down