[AR] Re: $4 billion per flight

  • From: Rand Simberg <simberg@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • To: arocket@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
  • Date: Tue, 1 Mar 2022 11:29:45 -0800

It gives you average cost per flight, which is the number you should use for programmatic trades. Marginal cost is only useful for figuring out which vehicle to use for a specific flight.

On 3/1/22 11:10, Matthew JL wrote:

Apollo was ~$90 billion adjusted for inflation for the Saturn V ($50 billion) and CSM ($37 billion) and yet we’re up in arms over the same capability as that for about half the price (SLS being $27 billion and Orion being $24 billion).

Need I add that NASA’s budget is still significantly less than half what it was at the height of Apollo despite enjoying record public enthusiasm.

PS - contract cost divided by number of units always distorts the marginal cost and it’s a mistake I see across the board.

Best,
-Matt L.

On Tue, Mar 1, 2022 at 1:42 PM Rand Simberg <simberg@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

    It's now over twenty billion since 2010.

    On 3/1/22 10:32, Henry Vanderbilt wrote:
    SLS, presumably.  Is anyone shocked?  ~$4 billion a year program
    budget, ~one flight a year, let's see, divide 4 by 1...  However
    the SLS establishment massaged the numbers, that's what it was
    always going to work out to.

    Ignoring the huge development costs, of course.  I've lost
    track.  How many tens of billions have been sunk into this thing
    over the years?  With or without its Ares predecessor, it's a
    very large number.

    Henry

    On 3/1/2022 10:09 AM, George Herbert wrote:
    Aahhhhhhhhhhhhhh….

    -George

    Sent from my iPhone

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