On 01 Mar 2004 05:45:17 GMT, "Jorge R. Frank"
wrote:

Scott Ferrin wrote in
:


This week's AW&ST:

"Pressed by Congress for cost estimates on Bush's Moon/Mars
exploration plan, NASA releases some figures to back up its pretty but
imprecise "sand chart" that purports to demonstrate there's no hidden
cost "balloon" in the plan (AW&ST Jan. 26, p. 22). According to the
Library of Congress' Congressional Research Service, NASA assumes it
will cost $64 billion in Fiscal 2003 dollars to land humans on the
Moon in 2020. That amount includes $24 billion to build and operate
the proposed Crew Exploration Vehicle (CEV) through 2020, plus $40
billion in Fiscal 2011-20 to build and operate a CEV lunar lander. "

That's about two-thirds the cost of Apollo, in current dollars. That sounds
about right, considering that 1) we've done it before, but 2) everyone who
did it the first time is retired or dead.

What did *you* find wrong with the picture?


Seventeen years.