Re: X-33 & X-34 Projects Terminated

[Alberto Monteiro]

Joshua Bell wrote:
>
>>A reusable rocket is simply a waste of fuel.
>>
>>This might only be justified if the fuel was much more cheap than the
>>circuitry etc.
>
>Is the fuel really that expensive?
>
"If I told you I would have to kill you" :-)

Yes, it is. I can't precise how much, but just think that some rockets
use Liquid Oxigen and Liquid Hydrogen, with high costs of production
and high costs of storage.

>The limiting factor doesn't seem to be cost of materials, but cost of labor. 
>Shuttle takes a team of hundreds several months to get ready. 
>
And, of course, it's not 100% reusable. Lots of things have to be
replaced, even with common cars!

>(...) Each shuttle flight appears to cost $500 million, and surely 
>the fuel is only a tiny fraction of that.
>
Ok, I don't know how much of this is the cost of the fuel :-(

Alberto Monteiro