Re: Does NASA save money reusing SRB's?

The Apprentice wrote:

Scott Lowther <scottlowther@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in
news:3A%Pe.1005$Xo3.748@xxxxxxxxxxxxx:



The other red flag is that solid strap-ons have been used for decades
by many other countries (particularly Ariane) and other domestic
expendable launch systems, yet nobody else reuses their solids.

Soyuz has launched over 6000 of their strap on liquid boosters, and haven't recovered a one. Would they be cheaper recoverable? Dunno. At thier flight rate... probably.



If anything your point about Soyuz raises the question whether reuse of strap-ons *in general* saves money. If it did wouldn't *somebody* in the world (besides NASA) have at least tried it, after concluding it had potential during their paper studies?

The Soviets thought so, as they designed their Energia strap on boosters to be recoverable. Land-landing, no less.


The thing is: recoverable is hard and expensive *up* *front*. Expendable is cheap up front. IF the difference in cost is the difference between proceeding or not...

Consider: assume Ford came out with a new four-seater compact car that got 1,000 miles per gallon, never got flat tires, never needed oil changes, and converted rain water to window cleaner. But it cost $500,000 per unit. Are you gonna buy one? Or the cheaper-to-buy, more-expensive-to-operate Toyota?

--
"The only thing that galls me about someone burning the American flag is how unoriginal it is. I mean if you're going to pull the Freedom-of-speech card, don't be a hack, come up with something interesting. Fashion Old Glory into a wisecracking puppet and blister the system with a scathing ventriloquism act, or better yet, drape the flag over your head and desecrate it with a large caliber bullet hole." Dennis Miller
.

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