John Doe wrote in :

rschmitt23 wrote:
that the Crew Exploration Vehicle (CEV), the space agencies latest
and greatest orbiter replacement, will cost $15B to develop.

I know that this would not be a popular suggestion, but how much would
it cost to build new shuttles nearly identical to the existing ones ?

About $2 billion a copy, plus the fixed costs of getting the line going
again.

How much more would it cost to add in all the improvements NASA has
wished it could do (electric APUs etc) ?

Electric APU alone is in the $550 million range, IIRC.

How much more would it cost to replace SRBs with liquid fueled flyback
boosters ? (or whatever technology is deemed best to replace the SRBs)
?

In the range of $3-5 billion.

How much more would it cost to rework the engine area to make it
simple, fast and cheap to remove/replace engines ?

No idea.

Would there be any significant advantage in having the SSMEs attached
to the ET instead of actual shuttle ? (either as a capsule with its
parachutes for re-usability, or using disposable engines).

No. SSMEs are expensive. Throwing them away would be ridiculously
expensive. Developing a recovery capsule would take years, probably
hundreds of millions of dollars, and would add weight to the stack. RS-68s
would be cheaper but the Isp is significantly less, so performance would
suffer.

Moving the SSMEs to the bottom of the ET would mean reworking the MLPs,
TSMs and the flame trenches on the pads. It would also significantly change
the thermal/acoustic environment at the base of the SRBs.

--
JRF

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