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Comment by tsimionescu

1 day ago

According to this [0] article from Business Insider, from 2006 to 2019, per seat costs for NASA from Russia rose from less than $25M ($38M inflation adjusted) to around $81M ($101M inflation adjusted). The cost per seat in 2012, the year after the USA lost crewed space launch capability entirely, was ~$55M ($75M inflation adjusted). According to this [1] article from Reuters, NASA is currently paying Boeing $90M, and SpaceX $55M per seat.

So, NASA today is paying Boeing more than the monopoly prices Russia charged (up to 2016 or so), and paying both of them more than Russia was charging back when they were competing with the Space Shuttle. And it's paying SpaceX about half of the top price it payed Russia per seat, still nowhere close to an order of magnitude in cost savings.

[0] https://www.businessinsider.com/astronaut-cost-per-soyuz-sea...

[1] https://www.reuters.com/science/boeing-sending-first-astrona...

Well it's less than the $81 million QED.

I remember the talk of broomsticks and trampolines.

The price savings are clearly evident per that article.

The only reason Boeing ended up charging that much is the extra money NASA gave them.

It wasn't so from the beginning