In article ,
Christopher wrote:
Could the shuttle go up just as well using paraffin/kero and lox the
same as with it's current hydrogen fuel?
The SRBs might have to get somewhat larger...the ET itself
would get smaller and lighter...

Intersting. However would the launch cost's be the same or lower for
a kero-lox fueled shuttle?

As Greg has already noted, fuel costs are pretty insignificant compared to
all the manpower involved. That said, fuel costs would in fact be lower,
despite the greater mass of fuel: liquid hydrogen is fairly expensive,
kerosene is cheap, LOX is very cheap.

...I [and maybe
lots of other people] was under the impression that the SSME was
cutting edge in rockets, ah well...

Most everybody in the West thought so at the time. Only when Russia
opened up did it become clear that the Russians had been building similar
engines -- in some ways better -- since the early 1960s, and every new
Russian rocket was using them. (The Russians didn't use liquid hydrogen,
but they did run their preburners oxidizer-rich, which in the West was
thought so difficult that when word about it first got out, some US rocket
engineers wondered if it was disinformation.)
--
MOST launched 1015 EDT 30 June, separated 1046, | Henry Spencer
first ground-station pass 1651, all nominal! |