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> From my elementary school memories, the Space Shuttle used a giant center rocket and two booster rockets that we expendable

That's incorrect. The orange "giant center rocket" had no engines, it was an external tank which held the propellant burned by the orbiter's main engines. The SSMEs were on the "Shuttle thing" and were reused.



Also, the solid rocket boosters (the 2 things next to the big orange thing) were jettisoned into the ocean, then collected, refurbished, and reused.




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