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Date: Mon, 22 Oct 1990 02:11:05 -0400 (EDT)
Subject: SPACE Digest V12 #480

SPACE Digest                                     Volume 12 : Issue 480

Today's Topics:
		      Re: Launch cost per pound

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Date: 22 Oct 90 05:29:07 GMT
From: brahms.udel.edu!harrys@louie.udel.edu  (Henry Shipman)
Subject: Re: Launch cost per pound


 I looked into the launch cost per pound question a couple of years ago
when I was writing my book HUMANS IN SPACE: TWENTY FIRST CENTURY
FRONTIERS.  I did the arithmetic to get to a cost of $10,000 per 
pound for the shuttle as follows (see p. 331 of the book for some 
references) Consider the shuttle program as a whole, extending 
from 1970 thru 1995, a time period when we have some reasonable numbers.
 I was a bit optimistic and assumed 75 launches through 1995. I set 
the total cost as $15  billion 1988 dollars for development and $2
billion per year from 1980 through 1995 as operational costs based 
on current NASA budget numbers.  This works out to a total of $45 
billion for the first 25 years of the shuttle program.  Modifying what
I projected two years ago, I think that something like 50 launches 
prior to 1995 is a not too bad bet, leading to a cost per shuttle 
launch of slightly less than $1 billion.  The same approach 
applied to the period prior to 1990 produces a total cost for the 
program of $25 billion 1988 dollars spread over 30-some launches, 
again with a cost of slightly less than $1 billion per launch, 
in good agreement with some other numbers posted here in the 
last week or so. 
    Incidentally, the cost of launching payloads with expendable 
rockets in the 1970s, converted to current dollars, is roughly 
$5000 per pound. 

   Of course there are other dimensions to the shuttle vs. 
unmanned rockets vs. the Soviet approach, but these are the 
numbers as I see them. One advantage the USSR has is that they 
have not insisted on pushing to the bleeding edge of technology;
some of their launchers are reliable enough that they have launched
them in snowstorms.  I'm sure that my friends who work on the ASTRO 
program would be happier if their payload had been on such a launcher, 
though of course the way this payload is configured it needs an 
astronaut on board to point it at targets. 
   
Harry Shipman, University of Delaware
harrys@brahms.udel.edu

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End of SPACE Digest V12 #480
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