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A comment on If We Can Put a Man on the Moon, Why Can’t We Put a Man on the Moon?. Parent comment

Re:If We Can Put a Man on the Moon, Why Can’t We Put a Man o... by sytelus on Tuesday January 02, 2018 @08:51AM (#16051805)
In inflation adjusted dollars? I would have still thought its 10X cheaper now because of all the learnings plus much lower cost computing and other engineering enhancements.

Back in 1973, the total cost of the Apollo program reported to Congress was $25.4 billion. By far the most expensive parts of the mission were the Apollo spacecraft (the Command Modules, the Lunar Modules) and the monstrous Saturn V launch vehicles. A single Saturn V launch cost up to $375 million in 1969 — or, in today’s money, a few billion dollars.

In 2009, NASA looked back at the cost of the Apollo program in its entirety, and arrived at a figure of $170 billion in 2005 dollars (or around $200 billion in today’s money). Compare these costs to modern day space travel, where companies like SpaceX charge just $133 million to launch a spacecraft to the International Space Station. The Falcon Heavy, which will be comparable to the Saturn IV, will be in the same price region.

https://www.extremetech.com/extreme/186600-apollo-11-moon-la...

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Re:If We Can Put a Man on the Moon, Why Can’t We Put a Man o... by frangipane on Tuesday January 02, 2018 @10:07AM (#16052207)
Safety. Back then it was basically part of the Cold War. Today, what are you asking the people to risk their lives for? Making things civilian-safe is expensive.
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Re:If We Can Put a Man on the Moon, Why Can’t We Put a Man o... by AnIdiotOnTheNet on Tuesday January 02, 2018 @11:37AM (#16052971)
People risk their lives all the time for sillier reasons than going to space, sometimes without even getting paid for it.
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Re:If We Can Put a Man on the Moon, Why Can’t We Put a Man o... by frangipane on Tuesday January 02, 2018 @09:28PM (#16057779)
Sure, so we might not stop an eccentric rich adventurer from self-funding an effort like this. But that doesn't necessarily mean the government would sponsor it, or allow people to be employed to do it.
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Re:If We Can Put a Man on the Moon, Why Can’t We Put a Man o... by AnIdiotOnTheNet on Wednesday January 03, 2018 @10:21AM (#16061661)
Well if your justification for that is because people might die, I'm afraid you'll find that the government is more than happy to sponsor and employ people for projects with rather high fatality rates.
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Re:If We Can Put a Man on the Moon, Why Can’t We Put a Man o... by frangipane on Wednesday January 03, 2018 @11:10PM (#16067970)
Aside from the military? Federal projects are very safety conscious. That was the whole point.
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Re:If We Can Put a Man on the Moon, Why Can’t We Put a Man o... by maccam94 on Tuesday January 02, 2018 @09:30PM (#16057795)
I pulled the Saturn V and Falcon numbers from Wikipedia, which were in 2016 dollars.
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