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."

Comments

Capitalism

[TaoPhoenix]

"You wanted us to adopt market pricing, yes Comrade?"

Re:Capitalism

[sopssa]

Maybe not yet, but what about when time goes by and they grow? You know, USA is far from China's only trading partner. Their products are shipped everywhere in the world. When they've stable enough, and if they have enough political/economic reason to do so, why you think they will keep supporting US?

In Soviet Russia...

[Jeremiah Cornelius]

Rocket rides YOU!

Re:Disgraceful!

[miffo.swe]

The moment US decided to go for the shuttle the game was over. Form over function is ok for household gadgets but not for space exploration.

The US had did have the best launch system and just tossed it aside because it was more cool with a rocket with a bolted on hip looking spacecraft.

Re:Disgraceful!

[turgid]

What the hell is going on with our country?!

You gave up to chase stock markets instead.

Re:Why the hell does it cost so much to reach orbi

[SharpFang]

essentially - yes.
There are serious problems. Like, the engines are running a sustained explosion of hydrogen-oxygen mix, which produces temperature quite a bit higher than anything we have at our disposal could survive. It's pretty much only the shape that keeps the explosion far enough to be safe. Oxygen oxidizes everything it touches for prolonged time, hydrogen leaks through thinnest gaps deemed secure normally. Add stability - like ballancing a broom vertically on top of your finger, the unstabilized rocket will happily fly DOWN. Control acceleration - you could easily bring astronauts to orbit in half the time and quite a bit less fuel, except they would have to be scooped with a spoon from the rocket. Your "grain silo" has walls that aren't much thicker than alufoil, and can be easily pierced with a pencil, but it holds liquid hydrogen at room temperature. Check what pressure is liquid hydrogen at room temperature.

When you start adding it up, and especially if you add up all the -failed- tests before you get things right, you come up with much more than $60mln.

Re:Disgraceful!

[darkmeridian]

We've become a bunch of scaredy cats. The Shuttle can still work if you accept the risk that we will lose astronauts during space travel. That's the price of space travel. It's not political like Obama or Bush. It has to do with our country being perfectly content sending thousands of young Americans to die in the foreign sands of war-zones, but terrified that seven grown men and women might die while exploring space. We're just being fucking stupid about this, and I say this with much love for the United States.

Re:Simple economics

[Chris Burke]

Yeah, he gutted the future that was planned and replaced it with something less retarded.

The future of the space program as embodied in Constellation was just more over-budget under-performing missions that failed to do anything to expand our horizons or solve the major problems making space exploration prohibitive.

To me the future of our space program looks brighter than ever.