Quote:
Originally Posted by $5 submissions
Exactly!  It's 8 years part 1999 and government hasn't exactly been 'keeping down' space exploration/space colony technology so... where's the moon base at?  |
Really the government has been "keeping down" space exploration. The budget for NASA is only around $16 billion. Each manned space shuttle launch costs between 450-550 million. Cost to the moon? About a billion.
Want to go to Mars? You are talking about tens of billions.
Want to setup a permanent human-sustainable colony on any surface other than Earth? You are talking in the high tens of billions.
This isn't counting the unmanned space probes/payloads that get sent up. Those are much cheaper at around $11,000 per pound, still adds up fast.