It seemed very wrong to have an American manned space flight where
almost no news was given on such missions, except some heavily edited
fluff.

I used to think, wasn't this what we complained about the Soviet Union
doing with almost all of their space missions, hiding most of them and
only letting out bits of fluff and propaganda via their media?

Now we can see that their secretive actions on STS-27 almost cost
an entire Space Shuttle, a crew of astronauts, and perhaps the entire
American manned space program for years.

All for what? A spysat?

At least the military has finally gotten over trying to do double duty
with the Space Shuttle and gone back to expendible rockets. If humans
are going to lose their lives in space, it should be for a far more noble
cause than some Cold War satellite that I am sure is kaput by now.

Never did like those secret Shuttle missions, and now I know why.