On 11 Jun, 07:06, Fred J. McCall wrote:
Charles Talleyrand wrote:

: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?
:

The original vision called for 40 launches a year (with 5 orbiters, I
believe), with an assumption of simple ground operation.

In actuality, they'd be hard pressed to manage 8 flights a year (with
4 orbiters).

The only way to do better than 8-9 flights a year is use a different
vehicle.

All this was deducible during the DESIGN stage. Yet those who were "in
the know" promised us cheap access to space. They knew all along that
this was poppycock. Can you wonder that we do not believe everything
that is trotted out now?


- Ian Parker