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Russia Doubles Price For Launching US Astronauts
Third Position writes "NASA on Tuesday signed a contract to pay $55.8 million per astronaut for six Americans to fly into space on Russian Soyuz capsules in 2013 and 2014. NASA needs to get rides on Russian rockets to the International Space Station because it plans to retire the space shuttle fleet later this year. NASA now pays half as much, about $26.3 million per astronaut, when it uses Russian ships."
I have altered the deal. Pray I do not alter it further.
So...this would be NASA's version of how many people can you cram in to a Volkswagon?
In other news, the dollar has dropped in value on the exchange market and foreign providers have been forced to double their prices to make up the difference.
Beta is broken and the link to classic doesn't work. Stop wasting our time or there won't be anybody left here.
I'm sure I remember watching this film once where this guy and his dog - his name was Grummit or something - managed to build this pretty cool rocket that ignited using a fuse. It was a bit old fashioned, but it seemed like a really cheap way to get to the moon. They didn't look like millionaires, and they seemed to have built it just using a saw, some metal, and a few household items, so I'm sure it can be done for a lot less than $60m. I think they managed to harvest a lot of cheese from the surface, too, so there could be an exciting business opportunity there for you. If I recall, the film also showed their design plans for this rocket, so perhaps watch it and copy it. Good luck!
'If Christ had tweeted the sermon on the mount, it might have lasted until nightfall.' - John Perry Barlow
I really hope that there are no loose ends in this deal... it would be suck that, after getting the astronauts to the ISS, they discover that back-to-earth service is not included and they need to negotiate a new contract for it...
Yes, I am Dogbert.
Why can't
Are you telling me that if I had the best part of $60 million I couldn't design, build and fly my own rocket in to space? Even a brute force solution wouldn't be that expense, surely?
Hear that sound? that's every rocket scientist on Earth laughing at you.
Well, he didn't state the requirement that he should reach space alive. That alone should cut a huge amount of the cost. :-)
He also didn't tell from where he wants to start. If his self-designed rocket is first carried into the upper atmosphere by a professional rocket, this again saves a lot of cost and probably considerably simplifies the design. AFAIK, space officially starts at 100km height, so if the professional rocket carries him to a height of 99.9km, I guess designing a rocket which manages the last 100 meters before it breaks shouldn't be that hard.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.