Discussion for article #227792
$71 million down to $20 million sounds great.
Until you figure in the $6.8 Billion NASA is paying to develop the thing. That puts a lot of seats in Russian spacecraft (almost 140). That’s gonna take a while to amortize.
However, I can see politically why continuing a close partnership (and dependence) on Russia is rather unattractive.
NASA’s $6.8 billion bought not just cheaper rides, but a thriving commercial space industry. Pretty much what the agency’s charter is about.
Why does Boeing, who hasn’t even gotten a test flight for their capsule, and is using a rocket built in a foreign country, getting almost twice as much money as SpaceX, which has tested at least their cargo version of the capsule, and has their own rockets?
The myth of the opportunity costs. Russia’s technology is 20 years out of date and was barely capable of accomplishing the goals of staffing the ISS. If we want to do anything else, reach the moon or mars for example, we need our own delivery system. So you put the initial investment to produce something way better that will pay itself off in only a couple of years. Once we get the system up and running, especially with a 7 crew capacity, we will be putting up a lot more than just 4 a year.
The 6.8 billion dollars being spent to support the International Space Station is a complete waste of money. It has not produced any valuable science. Most of the money is spent to send people up to the Space Station and bring them back alive. Another large portion of the money is spent to bring supplies to the Space Station. What ever is left over is spent on Science. For 6.8 billion dollars you could do a lot of really valuable science in labs. on earth.