"Rick C" wrote
I think the idea is not that you'd h ave fewer launches per year, but
fewer total flights.

That's the idea -- that hardware doesn't stack up on the ground and overflow
onto the tarmac at KSC -- where uplift was the bottleneck long before the
neck was corked by the 107 catastrophe.

At the same cost, you launch your components 30% faster, get to 'Assembly
Complete' years sooner, and make all the users happier.

Meanwhile, in this alternate reality, the Russians would have put their
Mir-2 into the intended 65 deg orbit, as was planned from the start, for
much better land and sea coverage AND that allows access from Plesetsk,
breaking the stranglehold of a foreign spaceport. First unmanned Progress
vehicles, and then manned Soyuzes, would have launched out of Plesetsk.

And occasional NASA shuttle missions would also visit, perhaps to bring up
US earth-observation modules for the hi-inc orbit, in support of occasional
US guests on the Mir-2. Russians (aboard our shuttles) would visit ISS in
its 32 or 33 deg orbit for science research, too.

Two stations? Too perfect? Yeah, it never could have happened -- it LOOKED
more wasteful, and when it comes to government budget decisions, appearance
ALWAYS trumps reality.