Well, since the shuttle Atlantis is home and NASA now completely dependent on Russia for rides to the ISS, I thought I would check to see if the figures I had been quoted for each ride were insanely wrong. So I checked an article Space Daily and this is exactly what I got from the article.
Get ready...here it comes:
Even crazier is the fact that the original plans were to decom the iss in 2015 and ditch it in the ocean. Luck has it that the other partner countries are negotiating the station life out to 2020 (glad someone has sense)
comments?
pic CBS evening News
Get ready...here it comes:
- NASA has signed a deal worth 306 million dollars with Roskomos for six rides to the ISS in 2012 and 2013, or a charge of 51 million dollars per US astronaut.
Even crazier is the fact that the original plans were to decom the iss in 2015 and ditch it in the ocean. Luck has it that the other partner countries are negotiating the station life out to 2020 (glad someone has sense)
comments?
pic CBS evening News
6 comments:
Well, maybe that will give some private companies some incentive to offer competition to Russia's new monopoly? Of course it does make you wonder how much it costs to maintain a fleet of orbital vehicles ... if $51 mil per passenger is more cost effective...?
See, I knew you would go there Josh! My only answer to that is...at least it supported companies and concerns in the US. What got me traveling this road was some one making a comment recently in a conversation on the cost of putting one trained soldier on the ground and it starts at a million...then I got to thinking training plus equipment and a two way ride...60 is a bit less frightening. But SpaceX, Virgin and the rest have got to think well 200k against millions and you got to know that they are VERY interested in getting a part of that. An I find myself in the position of championing privatized astronaut flights.
Well, you gotta say, the Russians have learned all about supply & demand!!!
decommish the iss ?
all this work and money and ditch it in the ocean ?
i thought that iss would be up there for many many more years.
again if we have the united nations then we should have united in space.
let every nation contribute.
as for private corporations delivering astronauts.....if they could get 100 million a passenger they would be very interested.
All too true Homer! Beating us at our own game!
Henryii
I would hope that they could get the job done for far less, one hopes that it will be market driven. Yeah its always going to be very very upper end but the line has already been drawn. Sub orbital 200k and 20 million for the time being, gets you to the iss. They can ask whatever they want, but if they truly are going to leave that big a hole, then someone is going to try and fill it. Bigelow is still out there and his test ships are still functioning and he has all but said that his program will be competitive.
As for the ISS yes it is a bitter pill to think that there is that much myopic behavior going on. The estimates of shuttle flights was unrealistic, the ability to deliver on time critical hardware was vastly under estimated and still to say that 4 years after completion it is time to close?!!! outrageous! Many countries were involved, the real problem was treating them as third rate partners that had no say. Well NASA better take a reality pill because we are just as much a part of this group and at the risk of becoming redundant and out rightly dismissed, NASA better start currying favor in places that they haven't been too close with before. NASA and the US have few friends and a call to decommission the ISS can not be endearing us with anyone.
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