<p><BR/>Replying to:<BR/><DIV CLASS='Discussion_PostQuote'>The plain fact is the because of the great value of space payloads, rockets have to be manufactured to extraordinary standards of consistency and reliability, and that costs money. Every rocket goes through checks and rechecks during manufacture that make the care taken in producing a Rolls Royce look downright sloppy in comparison. <br /> Posted by DrRocket</DIV></p><p>Good point but the USAF seems happy enough with the idea for its Low Cost Shuttle Surrogate Booster (Page 190 - 192).</p><p> </p><p> </p><p class="MsoNormal"><span>In 1980, the Air Force contracted TRW to develop a low-cost booster configuration that would have a payload lift capability equal to the maximum capacity of the Space Shuttle. TRW took the original 1969 study that had been accomplished for NASA, which proposed a family of simple pressure-fed boosters, and updated it to be consistent with 1981 technology and cost. The result was an unmanned launch vehicle called the Low Cost Shuttle Surrogate Booster (LCSSB).</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span>The LCSSB configuration was very similar to the original baseline vehicle in the 1969 NASA study. The booster had three pressure-fed stages, with a first-stage thrust of 30.25 million Newtons (6.8 million pounds). The first stage used four engines, each with a thrust of 7.56 million Newtons (1.7 million pounds). These four engines were identical to the second-stage engine, except that the first-stage engines had a higher chamber pressure and an expansion ratio of 6:l (for sea-level/low-altitude operations), compared with the second-stage engine expansion ratio of 31:l (for high-altitude/vacuum operations). Keeping the designs of the first- and second-stage engines essentially the same would have kept development costs down. The booster had a payload capacity to low earth orbit of 29,756 kilograms (65,600 pounds) when launching due east from Cape Canaveral. When launching into a 90-degree polar orbit, the LCSSB had a lift capacity of 23,178 kilograms (51,100 pounds). The system had a launch cost for production vehicles of $59.2 million per launch (including all launch processing and support costs). This equated to a cost of $1,989 per kilogram ($901 per pound) to LEO, assuming an easterly launch (see table 9).</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span>Under Secretary of the Air Force Pete Aldridge encountered a storm of opposition from NASA and some members of Congress when he sought funding in the mid-1980s (pre-<em>Challenger) </em>for a small buy of Titan complementary expendable launch vehicles to augment the Shuttle fleet. It is therefore not surprising that the concept for the LCSSB, formally proposed one month after the first successful Shuttle flight, ended up going nowhere.<strong></strong></span></p> <p> </p> <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>