"Fred J. McCall" wrote in
:

"Paul F. Dietz" wrote:

:Fred J. McCall wrote:
:
: :And the evidence that you have presented for your original
: osition is...?
:
: Price trends over the past 30+ years. Look at NASA's estimated price
: for duplicating what we did in the 1960's.
:
:This was quickly debunked right here on this group.

Well, no, it wasn't. As I said, go ahead and use the numbers the
'debunker' posted, if you like.

Most of the numbers I posted came from the Congressional Budget Office, a
source generally considered credible on financial matters and not generally
noted for its friendliness toward NASA.

Furthermore, the few numbers I posted that came from me rather than the CBO
tend to make Apollo look cheaper. For example, I compared CBO's figure of
$63.8 billion for NASA's new moon program to my figure of $77.9 billion for
the Apollo program (both programs truncated at first lunar landing, and
expressed in constant-year 2005 dollars). My Apollo figure was derived
from the current-year figures published in Dethloff and adjusted for
inflation using the GDP (Chained) Price Index published by the GPO with
each year's federal budget.

The CBO, using a different price-inflation index, arrived at a figure of
$100 billion for the Apollo program through first lunar landing. So by
their math, the new program is even more cheap than Apollo than my initial
comparison showed.

So far you have provided little justification for anyone to accept your
numbers over the CBO's numbers.

: Paul, it's quite simple. Look at the cost of the original trip to the
: moon. Now look at the cost of getting back. Even if you buy that
: NASA's numbers aren't just a bit rigged, the price reduction over all
: those decades is just pretty damned small.
:
:It's there, though. Small != zero.

So we only need wait another half a millennia or so for things to
eventually come down in price to the point where what you say makes
sense?

Well, at least you're no longer claiming that NASA's figures show that the
new program will be *more* expensive than Apollo. I will take progress
where I can get it.

--
JRF

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