In Orbiter Processing Facility-1 at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida, workers are disconnecting and dismantling components on shuttle Endeavour's mid-deck. The work is part of Endeavour's transition and retirement processing. The spacecraft is being prepared for public display at the California Science Center in Los Angeles. Endeavour flew 25 missions, spent 299 days in space, orbited Earth 4,671 times and traveled 122,883,151 miles over the course of its 19-year career. Endeavour's STS-134 and final mission was completed after landing on June 1, 2011
Still dont know how it would work, It would take 2-3 years to even get a new ET built provided they could get the work force to even come back and start production up, that alone makes the commercial venture not viable.
I'm wondering if this "commercial shuttle" plan is being kept in reserve in case something really bad happens with the Soyuz or the other US commercial crew options. Maybe with the SLS program running, if it's using ET's and SRB's, there could be a plan dusted off to fly the orbiters again if the need truly arose?
I have seen no pictures of the engine removals.http://mediaarchive.ksc.nasa.gov/