[Cincinatus]

The Space Shuttle was a reusable booster.

[Telepathic Intruder]

Touché. Except for the external fuel tank the whole thing was reusable. The only problem is that it costed almost half a $billion to refurbish after each launch. Almost as much as it would cost to build another one.

[Vince Ferrer]

The Space Shuttle was a reusable booster.

The shuttle was a nice try at reusability, but in practice fell far short. The main fuel tank (orange) was completely expendable. The solid rocket motors (white) were recovered, but the amount of repair work needed to use them again put the price of reuse to be not much less than building new ones. The orbiter was the reusable part, but even it had to go through very expensive repairs and checks between flights.

The goal of the Spacex reusable rockets, is to have minimal repairs between flights, ideally just to refuel it.