JF Mezei wrote on Sat, 1 Sep 2018
11:33:31 -0400:

On 2018-09-01 08:11, Fred J. McCall wrote:

Anything is possible, but SpaceX *IS* going to refly these capsules.
They're just going to refly them as cargo carriers. So they're still
going to have to do NASA-style refurbishment.


Looking at crewed flights, would the cost of certifying a just landed
Dragon 2 (crew) exceed the cost of certifying a brank spanking new one ?


So you're just going to ignore construction costs?


Would it be correct to state that so far, a Dragon 1 have only been
reflown once in their lifetime?


True, but they've only been launching previously flown Dragons for
about a year, so how many times would you expect one to be reflown?


If, for watever reason, SpaceX is only comfortable with re-using them
once, then it means that it still needs to have an active production line.


You're leaping to an unwarranted conclusion. Since they've only be
reflying capsules for a little over a year and it looks like it takes
4-6 months to refurbish and check them out, there hasn't been enough
time for them to be reflying much (they've only done it three times,
total).


(it could also be a case of the cost of refurbishing the heat shield
after X used being higher than the cost of building new shell.)


There's no need to 'refurbish' the heat shield.


There are a lot of variables/possibilities and unless SpaceX provides
insight on why it reached decision to use new Dragons for crewed and
recycle them to cargo for subsequent flights, we can only speculate.


There are even more variables/possibilities when you pull them out of
your ass based upon absolutely nothing.


--
"The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable
man persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore,
all progress depends on the unreasonable man."
--George Bernard Shaw