"Jeff Findley" wrote in
:


"Damon Hill" wrote in message
6...

Using leftover SSMEs from the Shuttle program could get NASA's
future manned flight programs going. For a while. After that?

After that you either come up with ways to recover and reuse them (a
mock-up of a recoverable SSME "boat tail" has been drop tested in
water), or you keep building new ones and throwing them away, which is
an expensive proposition.

Unfortunately, I'm not sure that the shuttle ET (or stages derived
from it) could easily be made recoverable. About the best I'd expect
NASA to do would be to recover the SSME's and the avionics in a
recoverable "boat tail".

If SDV is inflicted on us I hope a recoverable propulsion package for
the heavy launcher will be developed, but I really wonder if the effort
will ever be made. National space policy has had a long history of
being short-sighted and pulling back and out after a half-hearted
effort.

--Damon