Henry Spencer wrote:
In article .com,
wrote:
People often think that if a Completely Free launch Vehicle appeared,
launched, say, from a runway, that NASA could simply shut down their
other launch ops and have cheap space flight. Not so. Closing down the
VAB, the Shuttle pads, the processing facilities and all the rest will
cost *vast* sums of money. You can't simply turn off the lights and
padlock the doors.

You could come close... if you were sure you'd never want to use them
again, and you didn't care about preserving them as historical relics or
about dealing with things like the asbestos in the ceilings. :-) Witness
other launch facilities on the Cape where the decision was "abandon in
place".

Look at the former United Tech/CSD facility in California for pointers
on what the current practice is on shutting down big aerospace
facilities.

Ain't pretty, and it ain't cheap.

In any event: it'd be far easier and cheaper to close down all the
Putinsky and Fireball facilities. So if closing down infrastructure is
a driver, start with those.

And further down the road, if "shuttle derived" is completely scrapped,
America's ICBM/SLBM fleet is screwed. No RSRM = no ATK-Thiokol = No
Minuteman/Trident missiles.

However, one can reasonably argue that that's the USAF and USN's problem,
not NASA's.

NASA is a tiny little branch of the Fedguv, and has to play nice with
the others.

If it's a choice between losing the big-solids capability and
spending money propping up their suppliers, they either cough up the cash
or learn to do without.

Or they talk NASA into not abandoning a useful technology and the
infrastructure already in place.