Re: Not on Shuttle-
"That what happens when the Black Budget gets its way."
The shuttle's escape system(s) weren't cut because of a black budget. The shuttle only happened because the USAF combined its public space flight budget with NASA's very public budget, and both were too small (separately or together) to address every need of something as complicated as a spaceplane. The USAF did add some extra demands like once-around flights that increased the cost of the shuttle, but NASA's pre-USAF designs didn't have the budget to fly, either.
The problem had nothing to do with Hollywoodisms like a black budget and everything to do with a government and public uninterested in funding very expensive spaceflight systems after the Space Race had been definitively won. There were Commies to beat in Vietnam early in the shuttle program; Commies to stare down in Russia all through the shuttle program; and lots of welfare programs to fund that, at the time, even Republicans like Nixon thought were great things. NASA wasn't going to get Apollo-level funding in that environment, nor was the Air Force going to get the budget it wanted for its questionably-useful manned spaceflight projects that kept being undermined by unmanned alternatives like ICBMs and KH-11s.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
