How cost-effective was SRB recovery on the Space Shuttle?

[CaptRobau 991]

A lot of you will know that the solid rocket boosters on the side of the Space Shuttle stack landed in the ocean on parachutes and were recovered and refitted for use on future Shuttle launches. A while ago I tried finding out how cost-effective this recovery/refitting was, but I couldn't find any concrete numbers. Scott Manley released a video today about mods that recover dropped stages if they have enough parachutes and it made me think about this again. So if anyone knows/can find numbers on the recovery/refitting of Shuttle SRBs, I'd love to know.

[Kryten 1040]

The SRB's weren't refitted, they were dismantled and some pieces used to assemble new ones. It was literally just as expensive as building them from scratch.

[Bill Phil 934]

In KSP you'll be good, though. Because the laws of Kerbal are not necessarily the same laws we enjoy.

[Nibb31 1667]

An SRB is basically made of steel casings (the cheapest part), solid propellant casting (the most expensive part), avionics, thrust vectoring systems, ignition systems, separation systems, and parachutes.

The SRBs were salvaged at sea by two recovery ships at great expense, taken apart, and only the steel casings were reused.

It wasn't very economical at all.

[CaptRobau 991]

The SRB's weren't refitted, they were dismantled and some pieces used to assemble new ones. It was literally just as expensive as building them from scratch.

An SRB is basically made of steel casings (the cheapest part), solid propellant casting (the most expensive part), avionics, thrust vectoring systems, ignition systems, separation systems, and parachutes.

The SRBs were salvaged at sea by two recovery ships at great expense, taken apart, and only the steel casings were reused.

It wasn't very economical at all.

Then what was the point, if they were at most breaking even? Was it a remnant of the original goal of making a reusable spacecraft/launch vehicle or was it a learning experience for future recovery operations? There had to have been a reason.

[Nibb31 1667]

Then what was the point, if they were at most breaking even? Was it a remnant of the original goal of making a reusable spacecraft/launch vehicle or was it a learning experience for future recovery operations? There had to have been a reason.

There was no point. They had invested in the recovery system and salvage ships at the beginning on the program, so there was no turning back. The reason was the political claim that everything was reused except the external tank.

[Wanderfound 1016]

The point was they were trying to maintain the pretense that the shuttle was a sensible and economical delivery vehicle.

[wizzlebippi 37]

Morton-Thiokol, the original manufacturer of the SRB's was very much the low bidder and they lied about their reliability and reusability. Their biggest selling point was being able to move the 6 pieces of SRB via train instead of by ship and have them assembled by NASA. Salt water corrosion did much of the damage. But in the wake of the Challenger disaster, pieces had to be retired much earlier due to exhaust gas eroding the joints between sections. If I remember correctly, individual pieces of SRB lasted maybe 40% of their advertised life.

[xcorps 232]

Thiokol did the manufacturing of the motors and solid fuel segments. USBI did a bunch of stuff including retrieval and refurbishment. Thiokol had nothing to do with retrieval and refurbishment and didn't lie about it because they didn't get paid to do it.. Some of the parts on STS1 were used on STS135.