Given a few extra billion dollars, and a year or two for preparation,
what sort of sustainable launch rate could the shuttle attain?

Well, let's toss out the money part .... that is looking at the problem
backwards.

Consider when a shuttle lands, it gets checked out, tweaked, new tank
fitted, SRBs stacked. So considering no anomalies this is going to take
a month. And with however many we have now, and allowing for some
schedule slippage, a launch per month is do-able. (Then you get the
invoice.)

Considering the operating scrutiny, budget limits, and so on, doing three
or four a year is a significant lauch rate.




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