Can this be an accurate figure?

"Getting the vehicle ready for re-launch is a long and costly process. About 30,000 hours of work is needed between flights - and that's on the TPS alone. The TPS is reusable for 100 missions, but only after loads of hands-on, tender-loving care."

Thirty-thousand hours is the equivalent of one person working full-time for 15 years. I'll concede the technology of 20 years ago wasn't all that great, and that the TPS is extremely important and that NASA did the best it could at the time. I'm not complaining about it taking that long, if it's the reality.

I'm just curious - was this the best which could be done? If so, they really pushed the building of those things. I would have thought that 30,000 man-hours wouldn't be acceptable for one of the systems of a "recycleable" unit.

Arf

Arf