On 20 Oct 2005 10:50:04 -0700, "William Mook"
wrote, in part:

We haven't done this, which is why we didn't follow Max Faget's advice
and reuse the F1 and J2 engine sets in building a fully reusable
shuttle with an ablative sheild.

http://history.nasa.gov/SP-4221/p208.jpg

Instead we invented a new SSME and SRB combination with new thermal
tiles - since that justified higher costs and hence higher profits. We
also went from stacked stages to parallel stages which created
headaches we are still living with today (failed O-rings causing
complete destruction of the shuttle at lift-off, foam impacting thermal
tiles again causing complete destruction of the shuttle at re-entry)

This is a very good example.

I should have been more specific, I guess. I am not at all intending to
deny that there are a lot of ways to make spaceflight a little cheaper.
Or even a lot cheaper - compared to what it costs now.

What I don't believe is possible, though, at any time in the near
future, is making spaceflight *cheap*. Not until rockets can be replaced
by something else.

John Savard
http://home.ecn.ab.ca/~jsavard/index.html
http://www.quadibloc.com/index.html
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