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

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.

Comments

Re:Cut costs, sure.

[AnonymousClown]

Will these cheaper options be more efficient, or just cheaper?

More efficient.

Between government salaries, the way they get contracts, how NASA's budget is dependent on pork barrel spending, NASA having to put some projects in certain states to get votes from Congressmen for a budget, price gouging by contractors, etc...

Just eliminating Congress from the loop is going to save billions. Add in businessmen/engineers and you have a much more efficient space program.

Safety? We'll see if it's reduced. But I have a feeling there won't be change in safety record.