Adding up the final tab for the space shuttle program: $1.5 billion per launch

"Adding up the final tab for the space shuttle program: $1.5 billion per launch"
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• The U.S. Congress and NASA spent more than US$192 billion (in 2010 dollars) on the shuttle from 1971 to 2010.

I would think that for $192 billion, we could have now had anti-gravity saucer-shuttles taking us up to board the warp-drive starship Enterprise, for colonizing another star system. Instead... we are still stuck with pathetic rocket-lift and propulsion.

NASA certainly can waste our space-exploration money.

Oh that's ok, we've spent just shy of one TRILLION dollars in Iraq alone and that hasn't really yielded anything special.

Nothing compared to the money spent on military. Even China spends less, and they're populations is way higher.

So during a 42-year span in inflated dollars NASA spent just under 4.6 billion a year of 2010 dollars on the Shuttle?

For the 13 year program which began in 1959 and eventually accomplished six successful missions between July 1969 and December 1972, the final cost of project Apollo was between $20 and $25.4 billion in 1969 Dollars (or approximately $136 billion in 2007 Dollars).

The costs associated with the Apollo spacecraft and Saturn rockets amounted to about $83-billion in 2005 Dollars (Apollo spacecraft cost $28-billion (Command/Service Module $17-billion; Lunar Module $11-billion), Saturn I, Saturn IB, Saturn V costs about $ 46-billion 2005 dollars).

A 1971 study of NASA concluded that “the $25 billion in 1958 dollars spent on civilian space R & D during the 1958-1969 period has returned $52 billion through 1971 -- and will continue to produce pay offs through 1987, at which time the total pay off will have been $181 billion.

A 1992 article in the British science journal Nature reported:
"The economic benefits of NASA's programs are greater than generally realized. The main beneficiaries (the American public) may not even realize the source of their good fortune. . ."

The 1989 Chapman Research report, which examined just 259 non-space applications of NASA technology during an eight year period (1976–1984) and found more than:
— $21.6 billion in sales and benefits;
— 352,000 (mostly skilled) jobs created or saved,and;
— $355 million in federal corporate income taxes
Other benefits, not quantified in the study, include: state corporate income taxes, individual personal income taxes (federal and state) paid by those 352,000 workers, and incalculable benefits resulting from lives saved and improved quality of life. According to the "Nature" article, these 259 applications represent ". . .only 1% of an estimated 25,000 to 30,000 Space program spin-offs. These benefits were in addition to benefits in the Space industry itself and in addition to the ordinary multiplied effects of any government spending."

In 2002, the aerospace industry contributed more than $95 billion to U.S. economic activity, which included $23.5 billion in employee earnings, and employed 576,000 people—a 16% increase in jobs from three years earlier.

Public perception of the NASA budget is very different from reality and has been the subject of controversy since the agency's creation. A 1997 poll reported that Americans had an average estimate of 20% for NASA's share of the federal budget, very different from the actual 0.5% to under 1%.


Wiki

You do realize $192 billion isn't that much in terms of government spending...right?

Explain to me again why this would get you something like anti-gravity drives? That's like saying, "the fact that you spend so much money on gas to make your car get around, should make that car faster and more technologically advanced." No, that would be research and development budgets that would contribute, and you can't equip your vehicles with technology you haven't either made, or is impossible.

It's easy to count up money spent and ignore the amount of money return, primarily because it's hard to measure exactly how much money is being made back directly through the money spent. People like to look at our budget and go, "Well look here at all that money just being shot into space!" That couldn't be farther from the truth.

I assume this means the roughly equivalent amount of $100billion+ spent on the Apollo program was a waste as well? Maybe, if we disregard the fact that the multi-billion dollar annual earnings of the computer industry can be thankfully attributed to the micro-miniaturization of computers, as well as the cell phone industry and many others. Think about the place of satellites in your life, you can once again thank NASA. Ever needed a CAT Scan or an MRI? If so you should probably thank NASA once again.

If anything this should attest to the fact that we aren't spending ENOUGH money on space. Where in the periods of time we spend the most money on space exploration, we received critical advancements in science and technology that returned the money many times over. And now we're reduced to remaining in orbit, and seeing less and less growth coming out of it.

edit: looks like illustronic beat me to the point im making here

Well, if building anti-gravity propelled space ships is not NASA's job... then who's job is it? We need to re-direct the future space exploration $billions to them! Because NASA's rockets (including the ion-plasma version) will not get our mass population to other star systems.

reply to post by Larryman


NASA's job was to to facilitate out technological communications in a world wide platform without running wires under the seas. Functionality has a better return of investment than fancying SCI FI theoretical physics. It's also easier to sell to the public and communications industries world wide.

And Mr. Stuffed, your addition to this thread is well said and meaty, a definite compliment to raw numbers I looked up. I've been researching NASA Spinoffs for quite some time. It can't quantitatively be assessed.

Originally posted by MJZoo
Oh that's ok, we've spent just shy of one TRILLION dollars in Iraq alone and that hasn't really yielded anything special.

Ridiculous!

What about all the cheap gasoline we got?

Question: How much money has NASA spent in space?

Answer: None. It's all been spent on Earth!