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Conceivably if we were to go to the Moon today, it would be substantially cheaper. This seems contrary to experience. In constant dollars, a jetliner today is
by stickfigure 8y ago
Conceivably if we were to go to the Moon today, it would be substantially cheaper.
This seems contrary to experience. In constant dollars, a jetliner today is 5-10X the price of a jetliner of the 1960s. Mass transit rail miles are >10X. The solutions may be better, but they don't seem to be cheaper.
Launch costs do seem to have fallen quite a bit in very recent history though. So maybe?
- fatbird 8y agoIs that 5-10x the upfront cost? What's the cost comparison in operating costs over the lifespan of the plane? It's not that I don't believe 5-10x, it's that I'm pretty sure the net savings are on the backend, which is where a huge amount of airplane engineering has gone--better fuel efficiency, faster servicing, etc. I'm not an expert in this area, so I'm genuinely curious.
- sgt101 8y agoJet technology is much more complex to meet environmental, safety and efficiency goals. Fuel was much cheaper in the 1960's, I wonder what the cost of a jet is in terms of it's operating life? Rail and other ground works have got much more expensive as labour costs (in the developed world) have risen. I expect that rail costs in China are not 10x? I would be interested to know ! In term of moonshots I think that safety and risk would mean that a modern mission would be much more expensive than Apollo.