I tried to use inflation adjusted costs. The "original" development cost of the Space Shuttle was, actually, about 10 billion dollars. Which is around 49 bill

I tried to use inflation adjusted costs. The "original" development cost of the Space Shuttle was, actually, about 10 billion dollars. Which is around 49 billion in 2020 dollars, adjusted for inflation (gold is a poor comparison, it's closer to 5x than 2x).