"I glad you agree your comment "This "nightmare" would would be in terms of added cost to the govt and added cost to satellite makers."

I agreed that "It is just plain silly to claim satellite makers will pay for launch vehicle development by NASA". It's silly because the tax payer would be paying for this development. The tax payer has always paid for all NASA development and there is no reason to suspect it would be anyway different (or that it *should* be any different). It was silly & is silly because it's irrevelant.

"The drop in launch cost for magnum should be obvious with a big increase in capacity for basically the same fuel and materials. If you need to do the math divide the shuttle's capacity by Magnum's and multiply by shuttle's cost per lb if that's not too tough for you. I'm sure you can find all those numbers easily based on past performance. Why didn't you bother to try?"

If it's SO obvious why hasn't it already been done. If it's actually going to obviously lower cost, why didn't Boeing or Lockmart develop it. Explain why NASA needs to do this. Is NASA the only entity that needs lower launch costs? If NASA is a launch company then it will have the similar costs as any other launch company- the difference being the tax payer pays these costs. Some of these costs are hidden- NASA doesn't get taxed, it gets money without paying the cost of obtaining capital, etc. Despite these advantages, NASA still manages to spent far too much per each shuttle launch. There is no reason to suspect that NASA wouldn't turn this Shuttle C launch program into additional job program. Costs would spiral out of control, until Congress decided it is paying too much- and this point could be reached before any hardware is launched anywhere [or you could say this has already been done and it was terminated- oh wait, let's do again; but this time do it like you "really mean it"].

"Your comment "It's either launching satellites or it's not launching satellites- you can't have both." ignores my near term comment. I doubt any existing satellite designs would be launched on Magnum."

I doubt it for a different reasons- Magnum wouldn't be built.