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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.

6 of 352 comments (clear)

  1. A better comparison by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    Is it cheaper than Apple's pad?

    1. Re:A better comparison by jhoegl · · Score: 0, Offtopic

      Its probably better than that neck beard or sense that somehow because you own something from Apple you are better than everyone else, you automatically get when purchasing an Apple product.

  2. Efficiency versus Greed by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    The obvious question in my mind is if quality can be so high and costs so low by using "integral manufacturing" why did Apple price the Mac Mini so high?

    That's a serious question even if the answer that Jobs is arrogant and greedy sounds a little frivolous.

    1. Re:Efficiency versus Greed by tivoKlr · · Score: 0, Offtopic

      I know this is OT but should Apple just give them away since they're cheap to manufacture?

      What do you make with your time and do you give it away equally freely?

      --
      Ocean is land, covered with water.
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