Different president, and standard government incompetence with estimating launch prices for a rocket that isn't developed yet.
Remember, they thought the shuttle would be really cheap, until they actually did it.
https://www.nasa.gov/pdf/55583main_vision_space_exploration2.pdfThis is from the offical anouncement of the reitring of the STS.
"or future, sustainable exploration pro-grams,
NASA requires cost-effective vehicles that may be reused, have systems that could be applied to more than one destination, and are highly reliable and need only small ground crews."
"with Space Station assembly complete at the end of this decade, NASA will retire the Space Shuttle and put crew and cargo on different launches,
a safer approach to crew transport."
In that document, the STS disasters is mentioned multiple times. They where seen as death traps near the end, and even needed a back up STS be on the pad when another was in orbit in case a rescue was needed.
They also all reached the end of their structural life as they where getting old. Money is always a concern, but NASA's budget comes from the national tresury, they dont have a budget per se. If NASA spends less, they cant use it on other projects, each project is approved by congress.
Why wasn't returning downrange available at the time?
They only had 2 drone ships. 3rd on only came online in may 2021.
No, I'm looking for an honest comparison between 2 vehicles, one reusable and one expendable, where both are using the majority of their payload capacity, instead of reuse being better if you fly only a small portion of the payload capacity.
If there was a smaller version of the Falcon, which had the capacity of the reusable F9, how much would it cost?
Just using F9 disposable vs semi-reusable you can make some cost per kg comparisons. They both end very close to the same price per kg if they maximise their payload.
Some things this does not tell us.
What is the actual cost, and not price? - we more or less know what reusable cost is, but not new cost
What is the use case? - Because your not launching kg's, but satellites, what configuration do customers actually want?
How does this influence fixed and variable costs of a company? - If you need another factory to produce one more unit, then your fixed costs jump at that extra unit.
How does this influence your launch cadence? - F9 partial reusablity allows SpaceX facotries to focus only on 2nd stages, and not a big bigger 1st stage. This means they can produce more complete rockets quicker for less fixed cost.
This is a complex question, and you can get whatever you want out of it. And there are also differnt ways to reuse a vehicle. Not all models are the same, and will result in the same outcome.
Yes they do. They still have liquid oxygen, and fuel to deal with.
They have the heat of rentry to deal with.
With your comment, I take it you think 9-11 was an inside job, because jet fuel can't melt steel beams?
Or do you recognise that heat can cause steel to lose its strength and potentially fail at quite low temperatures, even as low as 300 C?
Liquid Oxygen is a lot easier to work with for a lot of reasons. Aside from the fact that it boils at 50'C warmer than hydrogen, it does not cause metal embrittlement. The oxygen atom is a lot bigger and much easier to deal with, meaning it does not leak right through a solid steel pipe. Hydrogen also needs much larger fuel tanks due to its very low energy density. Hydrogen is very much NOT like oxygen. You also need to be a lot more careful around hydrogen, as it burns clear and is hard to detect. This means you could literally have a hydrogen flame shooting out of a pipe, and you wont know it until it burns your leg off.
But O2 is not a fuel, its an oxidiser. RP-1 and Liquid Methane is easy to deal with.
As for strength over temperature.
Different materials perform differntly at different temperatures.
Aluminium drops below a usable strength at very low temperatures.
At 20'C, aluminium can hold 250 MPa stress
At 300'C its below 80Mpa or about 30% its initial strength
Staniless steel
At 20'C its about 590Mpa
But at 600'C is still at 380Mpa, still at 65% of its initial strength.
For exposure to heat, you want stainless steel over aluminium. STS was heavy and they needed aluminium to get it under weight at the cost of playing very close to failure if a tile breaks. SS has more thrust available to it, so they can forgo some mass efficency for safety.
So you were making a point which wasn't relevant at all?
I already know that they can. The issue is where is the reusable second stage?
No where. The closest you get to that is the shuttle, which ditched a quite heavy tank just before getting into orbit.
There are no fully reusable rockets in existance yet. Im not sure what you are thinking?!
Im giving example of components of reusability at every stage. 1st stage has been done. Return from Orbit and beyond has been done. Not in the same vehicle obviously. But it seems that something are not all that obvious for everyone.