Re: Griffin admits shuttle and ISS a mistake

Monte Davis wrote:

In other words, they were saying not that STS could have been a
contender if this or that choice had been different, but that we were
trying to accomplish in one step what should have been spread over a
series.


But here the shuttle was caught between irreconcilable constraints.
The goal was to reduce the cost of launch, but if too much were spent
on development -- as a series of vehicles likely would have done --
then the overall savings at projected flight rates would have evaporated
once the development cost was amortized.

NASA planners must have been thinking that the good times of huge
space budgets would return, with corresponding traffic volume,
justifying something like the shuttle.  At the flight rates that they
actually could have reasonably expected, it didn't make sense,
incremental development or not.

	Paul
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