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A comment on NASA's Perseverance rover sends stunning images. Parent comment

Re:NASA's Perseverance rover sends stunning images by extrapickles on Tuesday March 02, 2021 @11:36PM (#26324809)
The reason for that high of a price tag is that the engineering costs are spread over a very few units. If they made 100,000 of them, the costs would be much closer to the materials cost.
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Re:NASA's Perseverance rover sends stunning images by adrianN on Wednesday March 03, 2021 @02:03AM (#26325554)
So only six figures for fridge? Sounds like a good deal.
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Re:NASA's Perseverance rover sends stunning images by raverbashing on Wednesday March 03, 2021 @03:15AM (#26325936)
> the costs would be much closer to the materials cost

Which is? Not cheap. And it's not like you can buy in any corner store.

And no, while an "economy of scale" would make it cheaper, it doesn't mean it would be cheap.

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Re:NASA's Perseverance rover sends stunning images by extrapickles on Wednesday March 03, 2021 @04:30PM (#26334861)
I never said they would be affordable even in qty 100k.

I would think the major use for them beyond space probes would be providing last resort backup power/heat for life support on outside earth orbit space habitats/crewed vehicles as the cost will still be at least $500/watt.

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