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What book would you recommend that goes into a lot of techical details on the development of the Space Shuttle (how it unfolded chronologically, how the decision was made to develop it, what were the constraints and limitations, what were the technical challenges and how they were solved, what was tried but didn't work out, etc.)?

I've just read the book Into the Black, but it mostly focused on other stuff and had very little information on the development process.

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    $\begingroup$ The two Heppenheimer books The Space Shuttle Decision and Development of the Space Shuttle are good. The first one you can get a free pdf of nasa.gov/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/sp-4221.pdf $\endgroup$
    – Organic Marble
    Commented Jul 24 at 15:24
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    $\begingroup$ The Space Shuttle Decision is available on NASA's site. I thought there was a plaintext version as well but I can't find it. $\endgroup$
    – Russell Borogove
    Commented Jul 24 at 15:28
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    $\begingroup$ Dennis Jenkins' book is also good. There have been many editions; the last one looks epic, but I haven't actually seen it. $\endgroup$
    – Organic Marble
    Commented Jul 24 at 15:30
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    $\begingroup$ @ScienceSnake - well yeah a recommendation is by definition going to be an opinion. But I don't think in this case it's the type of opinion question that is going to lead to debates, which I think is the spirit of the rule. But rather opening up some avenues for further learning about this particular aspect of space exploration history, both for the OP as well as others. I agree though that if there was a better place to ask then that would be preferred, but I'm not sure there is. $\endgroup$
    – Steve Pemberton
    Commented Jul 24 at 17:40
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    $\begingroup$ I've voted to leave open and added the reference-request tag. The only reason we use the "likely to receive answers that are opinion-based" close vote is when there is a genuine concern that there will be a problem with opinion-based answers. The OP asks for a book that covers something specific: "how the decision was made to develop it, what were the constraints and limitations, what were the technical challenges and how they were solved" and that can be answered with fact-based answer posts. There's no benefit to preventing that kind of answer post! Just the opposite! $\endgroup$
    – uhoh
    Commented Jul 25 at 2:18

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The subject is the Space Shuttle and you ask for a reference about

  1. how it unfolded chronologically,

  2. how the decision was made to develop it

  3. what were the constraints and limitations,

  4. what were the technical challenges and how they were solved,

  5. what was tried but didn't work out,

As suggested in comments by myself and Russell Borogove, "The Space Shuttle Decision" aka History of the Space Shuttle Volume 1 by Heppenheimer is an excellent book and available as a free download from NASA at the link. However, the shuttle doesn't make an appearance until Chapter 3 and the book focuses heavily on politics. This book addresses a lot of your parts 1, 2, and 3, and some of the others.

For the more technical parts 4 and 5 I suggest another book by the same author "The Development of the Space Shuttle" a.ka. aka History of the Space Shuttle Volume 2 While still covering politics, this volume is much more technically oriented with chapters dedicated to each of the major subsystems such as the main engine, the other propulsion systems, thermal protection, software and avionics, etc. Personally I prefer this volume, and it covers the rest of your question. Unfortunately, I have not found this volume online for free.

Another excellent book that plows the same ground is Dennis Jenkins' "The Space Shuttle" which has been issued in continuously updated editions with slightly different titles for decades. The 2001 version "Space Shuttle - the History of the National Space Transportation - the first 100 Missions" is available for checkout at the Internet Archive.

Again covering much of the same material, less technical than either but eminently readable is "The Voyages of Columbia, the First True Spaceship" by Richard Lewis. Also available for checkout at the Internet Archive.

Finally if you really want the nitty-gritty technical details, I can suggest nothing finer that the two-volume proceedings of "Space Shuttle Technical Conference", NASA CP 2342, available as two large but free downloads from NASA NTRS. (Part 1, Part 2) In June 1983 after the sadly premature declaration of the shuttle's operational status, "NASA organized a technical conference focusing on the design and development phase of the Space Shuttle Program" and in many cases, the actual subsystem managers presented the evolution of their subsystem's design.

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