Re: Does NASA save money reusing SRB's?

On Tue, 30 Aug 2005 19:02:14 +0100, in a place far, far away, Russell
Wallace <russell.no.spam@xxxxxxxxx> made the phosphor on my monitor
glow in such a way as to indicate that:

>Rand Simberg wrote:
>> There is no simple answer to that question. It depends largely on the
>> flight rate. Few if any existing launch systems currently have a high
>> enough flight rate to justify reusability.
>
>You seem to be implying that high flight rate favors reuse of strap-on
>solid boosters; I'm curious as to your reason for this?

Because there are high fixed costs that have to be amortized over the
number of flights.

>Usually the main
>reason for economy of scale comes from the fact that you can use more
>automation and still cover your fixed costs; and I would have thought
>the activity of rolling new boosters off a production line, was a lot
>more amenable to automation than the activity of fishing used boosters
>out of the sea, shipping them back to the factory, disassembling,
>cleaning and inspecting etc?

Whether or not it's automated or not is a separate issue. Either way,
small levels of activity don't justify reusable systems, large ones
do.
.