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SpaceX Falcon 9 Relatively Cheap Compared To NASA's New Pad

Posted by Soulskill on from the i'll-order-a-dozen dept.

An anonymous reader writes with this excerpt from Motherboard.tv: "As debate over the future of spaceflight rages on — and as the axe all but falls on NASA's mission back to the moon and beyond — the successful launch of SpaceX's Falcon 9 two weeks ago proved at least one of the virtues of the private option: it's a heckuva lot cheaper than government-funded rides to space. In fact, the whole system was built for less than the cost of the service tower that was to be used for NASA's proposed future spaceflight vehicle (yup, the service tower is finished, but the rocket isn't, and the whole program may well be canceled anyway)." CEO Elon Musk spoke recently about some of the ways SpaceX finds to cut costs in the construction of their rockets.

5 of 352 comments (clear)

  1. About to get more expensive! by Geoffrey.landis · · Score: -1, Flamebait

    The Falcon-9 is about to get 50% more expensive.
    Musk has just proposed to NASA that Space-X will fly only two demonstration flights of Falcon-9, instead of three... but he still wants to be paid for all three.

    --
    http://www.geoffreylandis.com
  2. Re:Ares = manrated, Falcon = cargo. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Flamebait

    You know nothing.

    If you would try to use a non man-rated rocket to launch a person, you'll end up shaking them to death.

  3. Re:Cut costs, sure. by TheEyes · · Score: 0, Flamebait

    GP was talking about the NASA from the 60s, who was really careful about safety after losing an entire crew in a pure oxygen filled capsule, not the one that has spent the last thirty years under "can't do" Republican administrations. It's become a self-fulfilling prophecy: Republicans get into power claiming the government can't do anything right, they get into government and fire everyone competent, replacing them with industry lobbyists, and outsource everything they can, then government proceeds to fail because all it has left on staff are vultures greedily funneling taxpayer money into private hands. Rinse and repeat.

  4. In Short, by General_Fei · · Score: 0, Flamebait

    Capitalism FTW.

  5. Re:Cut costs, sure. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Flamebait

    America is turning into a third world country. Third world people = third world country.

    Mexicans and blacks CANNOT function properly in a Western society, and they sure as hell can't produce rockets and get men into space. (Don't tell me about the 'affirmative action' head of NASA...)

    Have you any evidence to the contrary?

    What are you going to tell your children when they are living in abject poverty, because you were too stupid and arrogant to even DISCUSS the invasion of your country?