"Scott Lowther" wrote in message
...
Henry Spencer wrote:

In article ,
Pat Flannery wrote:


[Shuttle-C variants]
Operating costs of such a vehicle could be kept low due to the amount
of man-hours that could be saved in not having to deal with the
orbiter's refurbishment and upkeep.



Emphasis on the word "could". That's not the same as "would".

Generally speaking, you cannot get a truly low-cost process by paring
bits
off a high-cost one.


Except in this case, it *should* be entirely feasible. It's the orbiter
and the standing army that costs. ATK sells each RSRM to NASA for less
than $30M, and makes a profit doing so; much of the Shuttle system just
ain't that expensive. Get rid of the bits that *are*.

So $60 million for a pair of RSRMs, another $60 million for an ET, say $20
million (WAG) for a boattail and engines (all disposable) and then you still
need a standing army for the VAB (to stack all this), the
crawler-transporter, crews for pad refurbishment, etc. pretty soon you're
talking real money.