It’s not moronic to employ basic economic principles like inflation when comparing programs from two different time periods like ISS and Apollo.

Your claim that ISS is the only program “in history” to hit $100 billion has to be assessed in today’s dollars because ISS is an ongoing program and historical programs are not. When we do that, Apollo is a $100 billion program. Your statement, as usual, is patently false.

Your facts are wrong. Your use of economics is wrong. Try to get something, anything, right before you post. If you can’t, then don’t post, you ignorant, flaming idiot.

numbers_guy101 said:

“Atlas’s alone cost more than $200M a flight.”

I’d have to dig around, but I thought ULA stated that the price for the Atlas V-402 would be around $140M. The -541 version was recently stated to be above $200M.

“I think we all know where this ends up, by just the numbers.”

SpaceX of course.

But the bigger question is whether the U.S. will continue to stay in space, and that means supporting the ISS. Without the ISS, and with the lack of an affordable space exploration architecture, our space skills will stagnate. Using the SLS/MPCV to fly in space for a couple of weeks every 2-4 years is not enough to keep the momentum we have had in space for the last 13 years of continuous occupancy on the ISS.

We have spent the past 13 years living and working in space, and we still have a lot to learn about living and working in space. Progress is being made, but we’re still a long way off from living somewhere beyond LEO.

“Using a CBM is a third class way of docking to the ISS but the USA could get people to the ISS that way.”

Won’t happen, and for good reason. It’s not safe. If the point of having a spacecraft at the ISS is to be able to leave in an emergency, then you can’t do that with CBM ports. Sure you could do test flights with one, but I doubt the safety experts at NASA would sign off on having a vehicle dock with one.

“In practice it is a trick to use when negotiating with the Russians.”

The Russians are pretty smart, and they would see it for what it is. Besides, they know that as long as the U.S. doesn’t have a real crew transportation alternative to the Soyuz, they don’t have to drop their prices, and could continue to increase them.

Using a CBM is a third class way of docking to the ISS but the USA could get people to the ISS that way. In practice it is a trick to use when negotiating with the Russians.

First, looking back, there was a time when the key variables for getting a US crew capability again after the loss of Columbia revolved around 4 items. First, how long was the ISS going to continue? Second, would the Shuttle decision be retracted? Third, would Ares I and the CEV (Orion) be developed on schedule, to service ISS some years? Lastly, would commercial cargo and crew keep at it, meaning having some minimal but real support, over time, on some level?

There were people in the 2008 time-frame who I know already had a good idea on all these questions as to how they would turn out, principally by seeing that big budget plus ups as well as big budget shifts were unlikely to occur anytime soon and for years out once we started down the path of ending Shuttle flights. The key was giving credit to inertia where it was due. That meant ISS was staying. That meant Constellation as a multi-vehicle exploration program was not going anywhere, as this had been a bet on the ISS money (and commercial cargo and commercial crew funds) becoming fully available. So ISS sticking around meant commercial cargo and crew were sticking around. The hard one to call at the time was about the Shuttle decision. My own opinion at the time was the decision on Shuttle would not be reversed, simply because no one trusted NASA anymore to not lose another Shuttle, as we had lost all safety credibility. No one would want to be the person who played a key role in reversing the end-of-Shuttle decision, only to later be held responsible when another loss were to occur. Anyone considering championing such a reversal on the Shuttle decision, meaning a politician, would hthink about this consequence. After Challenger, yes, a second chance. After Columbia, no such being believed the system could be safe ever again. Far easier to support a thing far in the future.

Now that may sound a bit like too much Monday morning quarter-backing, granted. But some people did document and/or lean this way in discussions about this combination of inevitable outcomes way back when. How all four of these factors ended was something called rather well by some.

So fast forward to now. Lets try this again. Does anyone honestly think the ISS will be de-orbited in 2020? This affects the commercial crew business case for some players, but not all. Think of it this way – think optics – which president want’s to campaign on bringing the ISS down in a fireball that who knows just might show up on you-tube and go viral? So it’s safe to say that the ISS will be around as long as it can be be, even bandaged, repaired, and by hook and by crook. Far easier to “support” the ISS.

Now consider budgets. Are they likely to be tight for NASA for the next decade? Flat is the new increase? So commercial cargo contracts will get extended. Throw a few hundred million the way of commercial crew year after year (less than current). Which company is likely to get to a crew capability even with such small amounts? Not when, but in ANY time-frame well before an ISS end? CST-100 comes out of this commercial crew cycle with information, a critical design review. And some mock-up hardware and some prototype pieces. And Boeing hemming and hawing about the business case in the news. Drawings and plans. DreamChaser not too far behind, more design maturity, on paper, with a few flight tests of boilerplate articles as well. Dragon gets as far as the same critical design review, plus an in-flight launch abort test, and a ready and waiting production line already spitting out cargo-Dragons. Cargo Dragons that will likely be needed after the current cargo contract…in a new series of contracts…

So, if you ended the Soyuz payments at about $150M a year, kept all the acquisition capability (and costs) in place, and added in the mere few hundred million of Commercial Crew yearly funding, who can launch crew twice a year for about $200M a flight (spacecraft and launcher)? Who could complete a spacecraft, for only some few hundred million more here and there?

Atlas’s alone cost more than $200M a flight. That’s without a spacecraft. Flat budget’s are actually a loss of purchasing power. That will affect Orion, SLS, and any traditional business-as-usual programs more than programs that favor ever increasing efficiency.

I think we all know where this ends up, by just the numbers.