How much does it cost to send out a space shuttle to outer space?

Question

Too much money is being spet on war,weapons,and trips to oute space.How much does it cost to send one out?

Answer 1

According to NASA:

Q. How much does it cost to launch a Space Shuttle?
A. The average cost to launch a Space Shuttle is about $450 million per mission.

Answer 2

Estimates I have heard say that is costs $10,000US per pound of weight just to get the craft into orbit. If you consider that the average astronaut weighs in at 150 pounds, and you can have up to 7 people riding that comes out to $10,500,000 in just weight of passengers. The launch vehicle (shuttle, external tank, solid rocket boosters, plus payloads) can weigh hundreds of thousands of pounds...ouch, that's a lot of money. This is only taking into account the physical shuttle. There are thousands of people on the ground that also play their own part in a mission. Each of these people will also want to get a paycheck. These folks don't just sit around on the floor looking up and talking amongst themselves. They have loads of equipment that they work on that also requires boatloads of money to maintain. Now depending on the weight carried and duration of the mission you can see that it can easily cost in the billions of dollars for just one mission. I hope this helps. Good luck.

Answer 3

As far as cost goes, trips to outer space should not be mentioned in the same breath as war and weapons.

The cost of the space shuttle program is about 4 billion dollars per year. This is about ONE PERCENT of the money the defense department spends every year to fight wars.

Our defense budget is much larger than that of all other countries in the world COMBINED. If we were to reallocate oh, about 20% of that money to some other, non-death-oriented purpose, we'd have enough money to fund universal health care, clean up the environment, AND increase our space program. And we'd STILL have the world's largest defense budget.

Answer 4

I don't know, but it couldn't maintain that speed.The thrust to get it to that speed has to come from somewhere. It comes from the fuel, which is very bulky and heavy, so the shuttle only carries enough to get off the planet. After that it's coasting in orbit. To keep going to other planets, it would still be fighting against gravity so it would need more and more fuel to maintain it's speed..

Answer 5

Too much. I agree with you, (reluctantly, because i find space interesting) Maybe it would say if you checked the nasa website.

I keep wondering what would happen if countries like the US took all the money they spent on the military (except a little bit, keep that for defense) and most of the money they spent on space, and put it toward helping people.

Maybe they are afraid they might "catch" communist (like a disease or something)

Answer 6

whats the mission, duration, destination, pay load, manned or unmanned?
Is this to be quoted in dollars, pounds, franks, euros, yen??

Answer 7

millions al depends on the spaceshuttle

Answer 8

I don't know, but I agree with you. It is a HUGE waste of time and money.

Answer 9

too much