system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
Would the assembly of the ISS have been cheaper if the NASA used traditionnal rockets instead of the shuttle?

I have been hearing criticism toward the shuttle for being terribly inefficient, yet I also heard others claim it was great for assembling the station.
gpt
Almost certainly.

It's a simple comparison of cost per launch, to payload deliverable to LEO per launch. At around 50K pounds of lifting capacity to 450,000,000 per launch we can say the Space Shuttle spend about 9,000 dollars per pound it pushed into orbit. By contrast, the Saturn V could throw over 300,000 pounds to low earth orbit, and cost around 110,000,000 dollars per rocket(186,000,000 if you consider the total program costs). That gives us a *much* lower price of a mere 367(620 with program costs) dollars per pound lifted into orbit.

The Space Shuttle was a marvel of engineering, but from a cost-benefit perspective it sucked.