4 ms·

I agree but there is the small issue of cost. I've read before that the ISS was the most expensive project in global history at > $150B. I used google to confir

by knz 10y ago

I agree but there is the small issue of cost. I've read before that the ISS was the most expensive project in global history at > $150B. I used google to confirm the cost and was stuck by 1) the fact that "Is the International Space Station real" was in the autocomplete options, and 2) How bloody expensive the War on Terror was/is ($1.7 Trillion according to Google).

InclinedPlane 10y ago
The ISS's cost was substantially due to the cost of the Shuttle program. Building an equivalent space station today using the rockets and systems we have available now would likely be considerably cheaper, by a factor of 10 or more.
- jessriedel 10y ago
  Do you have cites to support this? My intuition says that only holds if you compare shuttle-as-it-was with other-rockets-as-hoped.
  - InclinedPlane 10y ago
    It should almost go without saying. The Shuttle was one of the most expensive launch vehicles in history. There are several helpful counterpoints to hand though. Two being the history Russian and Chinese space stations. All of them, including the Russian components of the ISS, have been vastly less expensive per module than the US components of ISS. Even if you factor in building and launching modules by US standards on US rockets it's still vastly less expensive than using the Shuttle. Moreover, we've already seen that it's possible for US companies to deliver spacecraft to the ISS in the commercial cargo program. It would actually be just as easy to deliver components to the station using similar systems for about the same cost as a cargo launch today (around $150 mil at the high end). Over the roughly 2 dozen assembly flights for the Shuttle assembled side of the ISS that works out to an equivalent cost of about $4 billion, plus extra module construction costs. Keeping in mind that such flights have already been used or are being planned to use for adding modules to the ISS (such as BEAM and IDA).
    - jessriedel 10y ago
      Thanks for the info. Was the Russian contribution to the ISS really 10 times cheaper on a per module basis?
  - warfangle 10y ago
    The average cost of a space shuttle mission was $450m. That's 8 astronauts and 23,000kg of payload. [0] Soyuz costs $62.7m/seat. [1] Which means that 8 seats to the ISS on soyuz is actually more expensive than a shuttle launch. I couldn't find how much non-astronaut Soyuz payloads cost. SpaceX's Falcon 9 Full Thrust can lift almost as much payload as the Shuttle, at 22,800kg. I'm not sure how much each Falcon 9 launch to the ISS costs. Maybe someone else can chime in? 0. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Shuttle_program https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Shuttle_program 1. http://www.space.com/20897-nasa-russia-astronaut-launches-2017.html http://www.space.com/20897-nasa-russia-astronaut-launches-20...
    - InclinedPlane 10y ago
      Note that the incremental cost of a shuttle mission was $450 million, but that ignores the high fixed costs. Excluding sunk development costs the average price of a shuttle mission throughout the life of the program was a whopping $1.2 billion.
      - jessriedel 10y ago
        OK, so that's a factor of 2.7, but not even halfway to a factor of 10. Sorry to be a stickler on this, but I like to use the ISS as an example of outrageously inefficient science, and so I'd like to make sure this isn't completely attributable to the cost of the shuttle (which, I think we agree, was it's own terrible boondoggle).
    - baq 10y ago
      approximately $150 million[1] though it was a couple of years ago, before the accident. probably the right ballpark. [1] http://www.parabolicarc.com/2016/07/11/upmass/ http://www.parabolicarc.com/2016/07/11/upmass/
      - jessriedel 10y ago
        Of course, a man-rated Dragon trip will presumably cost significantly more.

by knz 10y ago

InclinedPlane 10y ago

The ISS's cost was substantially due to the cost of the Shuttle program. Building an equivalent space station today using the rockets and systems we have available now would likely be considerably cheaper, by a factor of 10 or more.

jessriedel 10y ago
Do you have cites to support this? My intuition says that only holds if you compare shuttle-as-it-was with other-rockets-as-hoped.
- InclinedPlane 10y ago
  It should almost go without saying. The Shuttle was one of the most expensive launch vehicles in history. There are several helpful counterpoints to hand though. Two being the history Russian and Chinese space stations. All of them, including the Russian components of the ISS, have been vastly less expensive per module than the US components of ISS. Even if you factor in building and launching modules by US standards on US rockets it's still vastly less expensive than using the Shuttle. Moreover, we've already seen that it's possible for US companies to deliver spacecraft to the ISS in the commercial cargo program. It would actually be just as easy to deliver components to the station using similar systems for about the same cost as a cargo launch today (around $150 mil at the high end). Over the roughly 2 dozen assembly flights for the Shuttle assembled side of the ISS that works out to an equivalent cost of about $4 billion, plus extra module construction costs. Keeping in mind that such flights have already been used or are being planned to use for adding modules to the ISS (such as BEAM and IDA).
  - jessriedel 10y ago
    Thanks for the info. Was the Russian contribution to the ISS really 10 times cheaper on a per module basis?
- warfangle 10y ago
  The average cost of a space shuttle mission was $450m. That's 8 astronauts and 23,000kg of payload. [0] Soyuz costs $62.7m/seat. [1] Which means that 8 seats to the ISS on soyuz is actually more expensive than a shuttle launch. I couldn't find how much non-astronaut Soyuz payloads cost. SpaceX's Falcon 9 Full Thrust can lift almost as much payload as the Shuttle, at 22,800kg. I'm not sure how much each Falcon 9 launch to the ISS costs. Maybe someone else can chime in? 0. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Shuttle_program https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Shuttle_program 1. http://www.space.com/20897-nasa-russia-astronaut-launches-2017.html http://www.space.com/20897-nasa-russia-astronaut-launches-20...
  - InclinedPlane 10y ago
    Note that the incremental cost of a shuttle mission was $450 million, but that ignores the high fixed costs. Excluding sunk development costs the average price of a shuttle mission throughout the life of the program was a whopping $1.2 billion.
    - jessriedel 10y ago
      OK, so that's a factor of 2.7, but not even halfway to a factor of 10. Sorry to be a stickler on this, but I like to use the ISS as an example of outrageously inefficient science, and so I'd like to make sure this isn't completely attributable to the cost of the shuttle (which, I think we agree, was it's own terrible boondoggle).
  - baq 10y ago
    approximately $150 million[1] though it was a couple of years ago, before the accident. probably the right ballpark. [1] http://www.parabolicarc.com/2016/07/11/upmass/ http://www.parabolicarc.com/2016/07/11/upmass/
    - jessriedel 10y ago
      Of course, a man-rated Dragon trip will presumably cost significantly more.