I’m old enough to remember the big sell up of the Shuttles where NASA PROMISED the ability to put them into space on nothing less than a few days turnaround. Had we been told the truth then and not had to fund trillions of dollars for that mess and now be relegated to paying the Russians to put our ‘nauts’ up on the ISS, we’d have been able to take a cheap launch up there and CHECK IT OUT....
The return rate on shuttles was pretty damn impressive, IMO. There was a point in the mid-80s where we were putting up several flights per quarter.
Once Challenger happened, NASA became bureaucrat heavy and risk averse. The results of that mindset are seen now in our dealings with ULA. They’re so risk averse that they just can’t get stuff on a pad under any deadlines.
Contrast that with SpaceX. They’ve proven they could turn around launches in no time, and they’re reusing their cores, something NASA couldn’t agree on. The real test will be when SpaceX has its first loss of human life. I don’t want it to happen, but the law of averages says it will. How they move ahead from that sort of failure will determine if they’re able to overcome the analysis paralysis currently influencing NASA.
“now be relegated to paying the Russians to put our ‘nauts’ up on the ISS”
I thought this was changed over to SpaceX. In fact, a female astronaut from my hometown is waiting for her launch right now, several times delayed.