In 1991 NASA was still designing its Freedom space station, and with the recent opening up of the Soviet Union NASA began to investigate using the Soyuz as a return vehicle for the station. Due to complications resulting from Orbital mechanics this would require flying the Soyuz spacecraft *inside* the Space Shuttle payload bay.
I have to give a lot of credit to David Portree who researched this in the past and made it easy for me to find the sources I needed. This is his original article from 2015:
[ Ссылка ]
He also has a Patreon which is supporting him while he's between jobs, I'm a supporter because he's one of the best space historians out there :
[ Ссылка ]
Here's a few other references for those who are interested:
[ Ссылка ]
[ Ссылка ]
[ Ссылка ]
![](https://s2.save4k.ru/pic/Xxz7n4eVqSk/maxresdefault.jpg)