>>11248941I assume it's this?
http://www.astronautix.com/v/vonbraun1952.htmlThe first issue is that the design used very old calculations which in retrospect showed that the upper stages weren't big enough to house all of the parts needed. The second issue is that this came out at a time when the United States didn't even put someone in orbit yet, so a large reusable space ferry seemed pointless at the time. Thirdly, when the United States gained the capacity to send people into space regularly (which such a ferry could be useful) it was dead set on the singular goal to send someone to the moon and the ferry didn't fit in with those goals.
Why didn't the idea get revived post-Apollo? Read the first point above, the design was old and used very old calculations that were shown to be wrong under the light of better knowledge. A new design would be needed. The general idea didn't die though. It lived on into the Shuttle. Unfortunately, the terrible political environments of NASA at that time doomed the Shuttle.
As an aside, those political environments dictated the design of the Shuttle and is the single largest reason why it failed. Another design wouldn't have changed a thing. It would have been plagued with the same meddling and low development budget that the Shuttle did.
