@S1-A.ARPA,@MIT-MC:amon@cmu-ri-fas.arpa (05/08/85)
From: Dale.Amon@CMU-RI-FAS I just reread Gene's post and must correct the numbers. The space station funding is ~$8B over 10-12 years (A ludicrously long timeframe). The average funding is in $100M's/year. The NASA budget is about 6.5B/yr, and I believe about 50% of that is for aeronautics rather than astronautics. If anyone is interested in the actual breakdown, I'll try to dig it up and post it.
al@aurora.UUCP (Al Globus) (05/14/85)
> > I just reread Gene's post and must correct the numbers. The space station > funding is ~$8B over 10-12 years (A ludicrously long timeframe). The > average funding is in $100M's/year. The NASA budget is about 6.5B/yr, and I > believe about 50% of that is for aeronautics rather than astronautics. If > anyone is interested in the actual breakdown, I'll try to dig it up and post > it. Aeronautics is considerably less than 50%. Also, the $8 billion does not include launch, crew, training, or any payloads. It does not include $3-4 billion of foreign participation. It does not include substational internal funds NASA contractors have invested (NASA did a wonderful job of getting the contractors to spend their own money in the initial studies, including the current phase B studies). Total cost is hard to estimate, particularly over the 20-30 year design life of the station. My guess is $15-20 billion to IOC (initial operational capability) and plenty more after it. This is not to knock the station, I'm a big fan (in fact I work on it). But the fact is that total cost is considerably in excess of $8 billion.