>entire 30 year history of Space Shuttle program is $196 billion

>>7801259
It's doesn't and does surprise that amerifats haven't protested this

>>7801479
Well... Nop

>>7801259
Muricans like to feel safe, whatever the price can be

>>7801259
was that the flesh-eating fog that turned them inside out?

Well, they're building 2500 f-35s vs 5 space shuttles, so there's a bit of a difference there. It also hasn't "already" cost 7 times as much - that's the projected lifetime (~30 year) cost, including maintenance, upgrades etc.

Comparing apples to oranges, really

So far the entire history of any space program was controlled by government. Which is bad for cost and innovation as it's not their number one priority.

Fortunately these cost are going down as SpaceX, Orbital ATK, etc... focus on exactly that. What with the Falcon 9 reusable booster and the dream chaser and many more to come.

Everything starts out expensive as fuck, but after time it gets cheaper, with the proper innovation. The only difference with the space program is, it started out as the most expensive fucking thing possible and was restricted to government.

>>7801937
Woops meant to say; SpaceX, Orbital ATK, etc.. who focus on exactly that.

Yeah well, it's not like the people who are buying those planes are trying to keep the costs down. The price of military equipment for the US military is just a result of organized theft from the government on the part of the military-industrial complex in collusion with congress. It's not a fair comparison because the people who are buying planes are looking to spend MORE money, not less, whereas the people who are buying NASA are .... failing at their opportunity to collude with the US government, apparently.

If NASA only had an ecosystem of contractors around it, maybe funding for space exploration could be returned. I dunno ... maybe they could even call a company Space Exploration. Actually, that's too long - Space Ex? Something like that.

>>7801791
I think it is.

>>7801259
You came out from /k/ with this didn't you?

>>7801259
Only about $100 billion has been spent on nearly 200 F-35s, over 20 years. That's about $5 billion per year average while NASA gets roughly $10 billion per year.