It’s hard to imagine “adult stuff” coming from a pseudonymous moron calling itself “Drama King.” Particularly considering what a non sequitur the comment is.

I’m guessing that it’s another imbecilic comment from Elifritz.

Evidence?

“The manufacturating cost of these expendable vehicles is the prime negating cost factor and was the primary reason the “reusable” space shuttle was developed.”

Shuttle, for all intents and purposes, is not reusable. The engines and TPS are practically rebuilt after each flight and many other systems have to be inspected and repaired after every flight.

The biggest “cost factor” in anything (launch vehicles or otherwise) is workforce. And the workforce associated with turning around the Space Shuttle is much, much larger and more expensive than that associated with any existing ELV. Privatization is not going to appreciably change this — the vehicle simply requires a number of man-hours that greatly exceed the man-hours required to build and launch any existing ELV.

This is not an argument against reusability — but to be economically successful, future reusable vehicles will have to require a smaller workforce and fewer man-hours for operations than the Shuttle and existing ELVs.

“Regrettably this failure may cost the lives of another shuttle crew as one of the cost saving features of the privatized shuttle would have been crew escape pods…”

How can adding a crew escape system to anything be considered a “cost saving feature”?

FWIW…

And we won’t, as long as we cling to the comforting fantasy that “private vs. public” rather than total volume — number of launches, number of design cycles, sheer experience — is the biggest factor in determining launch cost.

Adult stuff, Rand. The adults are in charge now. You wouldn’t understand.

What in the world (or out of it) are you talking about?

The cost of using the existing heavy lift launch vehicles to replace the space shuttle exceeds that of the shuttle and the payload cost per pound to orbit for the so called “emerging” private transportation services is twice that of the shuttle. The manufacturating cost of these expendable vehicles is the prime negating cost factor and was the primary reason the “reusable” space shuttle was developed.

However, NASA failed to achieve the goal of low cost shuttle operations when they failed to pursue the privatization of the shuttle transportation system. Regrettably this failure may cost the lives of another shuttle crew as one of the cost saving features of the privatized shuttle would have been crew escape pods…a fatal flaw.

The Obama NASA transition team is also heading down the same road map to disaster by not addressing the launch cost factor. Bottom line is if this nation wants to stay in the space game, we got to address the launch cost factor.