On Jun 10, 11:33 pm, "Revision" wrote:
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.)


That seems fine. But are there enough of the specialized machines to
build 24 SRBs per year? Can the launch pad support 1 launch per
month? Could the tank manufacturer build 12 tanks a year if you have
them a year's notice? What's the turn-around time on an orbiter,
assuming a willingness to pay lots of overtime, hire and train extra
staff, but expecting to suffer a normal amount of normal problems?