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Greg Hennessy wrote:
There are no hard numbers. Only various estimates, which are coming in at between 1 and 2 billion dollars. If you have *hard* numbers to present, we're listening. I could not find a detailed estimate for the robotic Hubble mission, but I have found estimates for the past shuttle missions: Hubble Servicing Mission 3A = $136 million, source: http://hubble.nasa.gov/a_pdf/news/facts/FS32.pdf Hubble Servicing Mission SM-2: "NASA has spent approximately $347 million on the Second Servicing Mission, reflecting the costs of building and testing replacement instruments, ground operations and other related activities. The Shuttle flight will cost $448 million. Total = $795 Million" source: http://hubble.nasa.gov/a_pdf/news/facts/hst-cost.pdf NASA Cost Estimating Web Site: http://www1.jsc.nasa.gov/bu2/hamaker.html Simple and yet VERY USEFUL cost calculator: http://www1.jsc.nasa.gov/bu2/SVLCM.html According to the calculator the development cost of a two ton "unmanned Earth orbital spacecraft" is $252 million, it is independent of the number of spacecraft that are built, and it is about four times greater than the cost of building one spacecraft, which is $67 million. MY CONCLUSION: 1. The $2 billion figure is a gross exaggeration. 2. Building and launching three identical telerobots costs as much as the development cost, so it makes economic sense to launch three Dextre telerobots and keep them busy. __________________________________________________ ________ "NASA realized that if a shuttle crew could service HST, it could be maintained and upgraded indefinitely. So from the beginning, Hubble was designed to be modular and astronaut friendly. The modular design allows NASA to periodically re-equip HST with state-of-the-art scientific instruments — giving the Telescope exciting new capabilities..." source: http://hubble.nasa.gov/a_pdf/news/sm3b_composite.pdf |
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