NASA: "The Shuttle Was a Mistake"

Bob Noel wrote:

There are a few other uses for a space station, not just a launch point
(I assume you mean space stations in general, not just the ISS).

We've a huge investment in satellites. Real on-site repair could be a time
and money saver if done well.

I'm not sure that there's much advantage to on-site fabrication until/unless
one gets *very* fancy (ie. importing materials from some place like the
moon, with the correspondingly lower transport costs).

- Andrew

In article ne.com,
Andrew Gideon wrote:

We've a huge investment in satellites. Real on-site repair could be a time
and money saver if done well.

In most, probably all, "repair in space" situations, you can build and
launch a replacement satellite (and throw in some improvements
on the side) for less than -- probably much less than -- the costs of
launching and recovering the manned space vehicle that does the
repairs.

Andrew Gideon wrote:
Bob Noel wrote:


There are a few other uses for a space station, not just a launch point
(I assume you mean space stations in general, not just the ISS).


We've a huge investment in satellites. Real on-site repair could be a time
and money saver if done well.

Do you have a clue where those satellites are in orbit compared to where
the space station is or where the shuttle can get to? It's not like
you can go up and grab a geosynch satellite and take it to the ISS for
repair and then plop it back in the right orbit easier.