[ExI] new heavy lifter

[Stefano Vaj]

2011/4/6 John Clark <Jonkc at bellsouth.net>:
> Originally we were told that a Space Shuttle would have a turnaround time of
> only 2 weeks and could make 25 trips a year, but they were lucky to get 3
> trips a year. Originally we were told the probability of catastrophic
> failure was astronomically unlikely, but the true figure was about 2% per
> flight. Originally we were told that because its reusable the cost of
> putting something into orbit would drop by many orders of magnitude, but
> we'd have done better if we never heard of the shuttle and just kept on
> making Saturn 5's.

I am far from being an expert, but read that the real problem is that
the Shuttles never had a clear mission in the first place. And of
course price per trip of an expensive re-usable vs that of throw-away
solutions is bound to increase dramatically if it is severely
under-used.

-- 
Stefano Vaj