What are the fixed costs in operating the Space Shuttle?
Fixed costs are the costs to keep the NASA facilities (such as KSC, JSC, SSC, and others) open and are not really related to the number of space flights that occur. The annual cost to maintain the launch pads, the VAB, and the landing strip at the Kennedy Space Center may add up to $2B per year. If there are only four flights per year, than the fix costs associated with each flight is roughly $500M. However, if there are 20 flights per year, than the cost decreases proportionally to only $100M per flight.
