"Paul F. Dietz" wrote:

Derek Lyons wrote:

It's highly unlikely it would have come down much even with one of the
original designs - which would have shared many of the same
maintenance and operating costs, and would have been even more more
expensive to research, develop, and build.

What's more, if the development cost had been much higher, NASA could
not have maintained even the pretense that the shuttle would have
had a positive return on investment, even if it *had* reduced
launch costs. The required flight rate to 'earn back' the development
cost would have been too obviously beyond what future congresses
would have funded.

And that's the key problem with both a notional alternative STS and
the alt.space movement - future launch rates are speculative as hell.
You need to fly a lot of payloads (regardless of whether your launcher
is expendable or reuseable) before your investment is paid back. Then
you need to *keep* flying payloads at a high rate in order to remain
profitable. (Or 'profitable' in the case of a government system.)

If you can't fly enough annually, you end up in a 'coffin corner' -
stuck between the unpleasant choice between raising your rates or
going out of business. (It's hard to cut expenses significantly
unless you've been less than bright in how you organized your
business, the least likely people to 'get smart' and fix the
problems.)

D.
--
Touch-twice life. Eat. Drink. Laugh.

-Resolved: To be more temperate in my postings.
Oct 5th, 2004 JDL