Sarah Brightman to go in to space next year

[DONTEATUS]

Its a way to Keep Space in the News ! The money isnt a drop in the bucket to what it cost per-hour for them to do this !

[qxcontinuum]

You really don't know how much a space shuttle cost do you?

It cost $1.7 billion to build the last shuttle, Endeavour. On top of that each mission cost an additional $450 million.

$54 million is, comparatively speaking, a bargain.

I believe, that is applicable only at nasa where a single screw ordered can cost a few thousands . In real life (private sector) things are much simpler and affordable and the screw will be built from the same alloy

Edited June 18, 2014 by qxcontinuum

[Waspie_Dwarf]

I believe, that is applicable only at nasa where a single screw ordered can cost a few thousands . In real life (private sector) things are much simpler and affordable and the screw will be built from the same alloy

You specified "space shuttle", since, in real life, the space shuttle WAS a NASA vehicle my figures are correct and yours are not.

As no commercial vehicle has yet flown a crew the actual costs can only be estimated but the supposedly super cheap Dragon will still cost you about $20 million per seat (and that doesn't include the, not inconsiderable, cost of training, which IS included in the Soyuz price).

The commercial alternatives will be cheaper than Soyuz, but not by the amounts that you are implying.

Your criticism of NASA costs is far from fair and shows little understanding of the political interference and budget cutting that forced NASA to make compromise after compromise until the shuttle ended up a pale shadow of the fully reusable vehicle that they originally proposed. If you want to criticise the cost of the shuttle at least do so from a point of understanding, rather than taking unfair, ill-informed cheap shots.

Edited June 18, 2014 by Waspie_Dwarf
typo.

[TSS]

Good on her - her money she can spend it how she likes.

In fact, given the amount you see spent on art or other areas of interest for people with these kinds of funds then i'd say her trip is money well spent. Hope she loves every second of it.

[qxcontinuum]

Waspie, i am a mechanical engineer, and apparently a damn good one. Eyes on papers, cost of materials, production, labour and such are no secret to me.

All the materials required to ensemble a space shuttle including metals, wires, computers, tehnology, machinery etc... would not cost more than a few hundred thousand of dollars. That is the reality! Even made in gold wouldn't be that expensive!

The rest is labour, union, entire lots of parts, waste, rebuts, made for just one piece, tests done to the extremes, paranoia toward safeties, ridiculous quality control, team meetings, lunches, vip expenses, birocracy in general.

You are probably aware that nasa will make another rover like curiosity just with the parts left from curiosity. They can actually make probably a few more of them since the 3,5 billions were not reflecting in the cost of materials of production.

It is everywhere a common acceptance that private companies know how to invest and create similar products with less money.

And yes there was an engineer going to Nasa with a very solid project sending a man maned mission to Mars. It would have cost peanuts.

As for flying is space, you can do it even with a high altitude balloon. Yes i give a lot of credit to Nasa for everything they did so far. Could their programs cost much less? Hell yes, but only after a storm. Their failure to do so is reflected in the current reality; paying Russians to fly out in space. too bad to see that happening!

Edited June 21, 2014 by qxcontinuum

[Waspie_Dwarf]

Waspie, i am a mechanical engineer, and apparently a damn good one.

I don't care if you are the Queen of England, you are still talking absolute rubbish.

I am not saying that it can't be done cheaper but your estimate is ludicrous. You could not build an airliner for what you claim. Just a reminder of what you actually said:

i dunno, with these money she could hire a team of experts building her own space shuttle.

The material cost of the shuttle may be low but many of those materials did not even exist when the shuttle was designed. R&D was a huge factor.

What is the material cost of a Ford Mondeo car? In the 1990's hat car cost Ford $6 billion in research and development (and that is a commercial company in a highly competitive market using existing rather than ground breaking technology). Those R&D costs can be spread over many millions sold and so are not the overwhelming factor in unit cost. With a spacecraft only a few will ever be made so the huge R&D costs are a major factor in the cost of each unit.

I agree that NASA has a huge and unnecessary bureaucracy that pushes prices up but the fact remains that even with commercial involvement and competition between 3 companies the price of getting an astronaut into space is still going to be in the region of $20 million a seat. A massive improvement over what the Russians are charging sure, but not the kind of fantasy price you think is currently achievable.

A good engineer you may be, a good economist you are probably not. An expert on spaceflight you are most definitely not.

Edited June 21, 2014 by Waspie_Dwarf