On 12/24/2015 4:44 PM, Henry Spencer wrote:
On Thu, 24 Dec 2015, Henry Vanderbilt wrote:
It remains to be seen what level of teardown and refurb Blue's and
SpaceX's boosters will require, but the equivalent of an SRB "refurb"
is way over at the far end of the range of probabilities.
Concur. Just getting the thing down intact and *dry* should make a huge
difference. The first few naturally are going to be gone over with a
fine-tooth comb, looking for any hint of future trouble, so it'll take
some time to see what the numbers are like for operational reuse. I'd
say that much will depend on how much attention reuse got during
development of things like the structures. (As HV noted, it's
reasonable to assume some design adjustments based on early reuse
experience. But serious structural redesign would be costly.)