On 10/26/2010 4:34 PM, Brian Thorn wrote:
On Tue, 26 Oct 2010 08:43:33 +0100, "Brian Gaff"
wrote:

Well as its quiet around these parts, here is some wild speculation. Say for
example a China/US consortium said, let us have the existing shuttle
hardware cheap and we will fly them safely for half the cost, what would
the US do?
Say no. Shuttle can't fly without Complex 39 and JSC, which NASA won't
hand over to anyone.

And I'd hazard a guess that it would be far cheaper to start from scratch
with a new design aimed at handling some subset of the tasks the Shuttle
has been used for over the past 30 years, vs. trying to recreate the massive
infrastructure needed to keep these old birds flying.

But wait - that's kinda what SpaceX, etc., are already trying to do...

Bob M.