Russia upping the price of Soyuz flights in 2012?

Maybe this is the excuse to say "we can't afford to play this game
anymore".


"Pat Flannery" wrote in message
dakotatelephone...
With Shuttle going away, now is time for bear to play.
http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp...5HpgKTCKt_dhpA

Pat

With Shuttle going away, now is time for bear to play.
http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp...5HpgKTCKt_dhpA

Pat

"I'm am shocked, shocked I tell you, to learn that market forces
are at work in the former Soviet Union."

"Your stock options, sir..."

"Ah yes, thank you."

So has anyone done the math? At a charge of $51 million per astronaut
per ride, how many rides does it take before we'd save money using our
own rockets? According to the link, NASA has inked a deal for six rides
on Soyuz to the ISS in 2012 and 2013 for $306 million.

I would suspect that if ISS were to be de-orbited in 2020 as what appears
to be the direction for the new plan, you'd be juuuuust beyond the
threshold where'd it'd pay to fund our own rocket program vs buying rides
on the Soyuz.

Then, when 2020 comes along, weeeelll the ISS gets another extension to
say 2028, where its juuust beyond the threshold to where buying rides on
Soyuz is still cheaper than building our own, then when 2028 get around,
weeeellll.....

;-)

Dave

On Feb 11, 8:52�am, David Spain wrote:
"I'm am shocked, shocked I tell you, to learn that market forces
are at work in the former Soviet Union."

"Your stock options, sir..."

"Ah yes, thank you."

So has anyone done the math? At a charge of $51 million per astronaut
per ride, how many rides does it take before we'd save money using our
own rockets? According to the link, NASA has inked a deal for six rides
on Soyuz to the ISS in 2012 and 2013 for $306 million.

I would suspect that if ISS were to be de-orbited in 2020 as what appears
to be the direction for the new plan, you'd be juuuuust beyond the
threshold where'd it'd pay to fund our own rocket program vs buying rides
on the Soyuz.

Then, when 2020 comes along, weeeelll the ISS gets another extension to
say 2028, where its juuust beyond the threshold to where buying rides on
Soyuz is still cheaper than building our own, then when 2028 get around,
weeeellll.....

;-)

Dave

with nasas inflated cost structure russia is a freebie.

shuttle costs about 5 billion per year, wether it flies or not, so
about a billion per flight......

now lets assumes ares had made it cheaper, and many here said it
wouldnt save much..... so be optimistic cut shuttle to half a
billion....

russia provides free transit, maybe china will drop costs futher?

they are certinally excellent at that with consuer goods........

David Spain wrote:

According to the link, NASA has inked a deal for six rides
on Soyuz to the ISS in 2012 and 2013 for $306 million.

That's still only around half as much as a single Shuttle mission.

I would suspect that if ISS were to be de-orbited in 2020 as what appears
to be the direction for the new plan, you'd be juuuuust beyond the
threshold where'd it'd pay to fund our own rocket program vs buying rides
on the Soyuz.

That would imply that we could come up with a rocket/capsule combo that
could launch astronauts at a price of under 51 million per head, which
is pretty doubtful, particularly given the far lower labor costs in
Russia and the fact that R&D costs for the US rocket and capsule would
have to amortized over the time scale between entry into service and the
end of the ISS in 2020 (although, just like Mir, I can see it getting
extended beyond that date if Russia figures out some way to make a
profit off of it, like they apparently do now due to NASA funding and
tourist flights).
Even with Ares-I/Orion getting replaced by a more economical
Falcon-9/Dragon combo, if you were just looking at things from a
economic point of view it would make more sense to just keep buying
further Soyuz flights from the Russians and scrap the whole US manned
program in any form.
No one seems to say what exactly we are supposed to do with
Falcon-9/Dragon once the ISS is retired, and considering that it
probably will take at least three years to get it up and flying in a
crewed operational form, it's not going to have that long of a service
life unless something post-ISS can be found for it to do.
Who could really clean everyone's clock in the price-per-person-into-LEO
business is China; and considering they already have their Shenzhou in
operation, I'm surprised they haven't contacted NASA and told them they
could beat the Russian price hands-down and be ready to go inside of a
year or two.


Then, when 2020 comes along, weeeelll the ISS gets another extension to
say 2028, where its juuust beyond the threshold to where buying rides on
Soyuz is still cheaper than building our own, then when 2028 get around,
weeeellll.....

I suspect the ISS will probably be operational till it starts to fall
apart, like Mir was. Hopefully they won't have some major incident that
kills all the crew before it's retired when something major fails, or
finally a small piece of space junk or meteor punches a hole in it.
It will probably be a long time before anything that big gets built in
space again, and the Russian plans for a follow-up space station look a
lot more like a scaled-down Mir than a ISS:
http://www.russianspaceweb.com/opsek.html

Pat

So we out source the ISS taxi rides to China at a hugh savings - and as a
side benefit we get really accurate models of the LEO transfer craft and
launch vehilce from Trumpeter in three standard scales - sounds win win to
me. (Wait a minute - I forgot the airfare from Houston to China,)

In sci.space.history Val Kraut wrote:
So we out source the ISS taxi rides to China at a hugh savings - and
as a side benefit we get really accurate models of the LEO transfer
craft and launch vehilce from Trumpeter in three standard scales -
sounds win win to me. (Wait a minute - I forgot the airfare from
Houston to China,)

Given the likely vast number of empty shipping containers going from
the U.S. back to China, it is probably cost-effective to install a set
of bunks and a chemical toilet along with food and water into a 40'
container and ship the astronaughts (*) to China that way. Heck, it
might even be roomier than the ISS

rick jones

(*) seems an apt name for someone who's country has no way to get him
into space and back.

--
oxymoron n, Hummer H2 with California Save Our Coasts and Oceans plates
these opinions are mine, all mine; HP might not want them anyway...
feel free to post, OR email to rick.jones2 in hp.com but NOT BOTH...

Pat Flannery writes:

That would imply that we could come up with a rocket/capsule combo that could
launch astronauts at a price of under 51 million per head, which is pretty
doubtful, particularly given the far lower labor costs in Russia and the fact
that R&D costs for the US rocket and capsule would have to amortized over the
time scale between entry into service and the end of the ISS in 2020

[...snip...]

It will probably be a long time before anything that big gets built in space
again, and the Russian plans for a follow-up space station look a lot more
like a scaled-down Mir than a ISS: http://www.russianspaceweb.com/opsek.html

You notice how eerily similar their 'next-generation transport ship' looks to
Orion?

Hmmm. (rises from wheelchair) MEIN FURHER I HAVE A PLAN!

http://markets.ft.com/tearsheets/per...p?s=RKKE%3ARTS

At a price of $290 USD per share and only 1.12 million shares outstanding
NASA could offer a 20% premium over current share price at $350 per share
($50 above Energia all time share price peak) and BUY Energia for an outlay
of only $392 million!

We then outsource Orion to S.P. Korolev / RRC Energia (since they were planning
on stealing it away) for a FRACTION of what we'd otherwise pay!

Then we SELL it back to the Russian Federation at $35 million per ride, thus
undercutting Soyuz!

NASA, NASA above all,
Above all in the world,
When, for exploration and research, it always
takes a brotherly stand together,
From the Cape to the Barking Sands,
From the Moon to the Centrifuge,
NASA, NASA above everything,
Abover everything in the world!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deutschlandlied

[Collapses back into wheelchair and passes out, hand over throat.]

Dave

"
Given the likely vast number of empty shipping containers going from
the U.S. back to China, it is probably cost-effective to install a set
of bunks and a chemical toilet along with food and water into a 40'
container and ship the astronaughts (*) to China that way. Heck, it
might even be roomier than the ISS

There's a Constellation emblem with constellation replaced by cancellation
showing up on the net. Someone should come up with an astronaught mission
patch - some poor soul staring up at the sky with his hands in his pocket
wearing a ball and chain painted to look like the earth.

On your other suggestion - now we could have nightly news coverage as they
try to fix the toilet in the shipping container, while trapped three levels
down and two rows in amongst the empty conatiners on the SS Golden Dragon.
Maybe we could get a package deal 20 seats to ISS and two free seats to the
moon in the frequently launcheded passenger program.

It's amazing how rapidly dark humor arrives on the scene in bad times.

"Val Kraut" writes:

There's a Constellation emblem with constellation replaced by cancellation
showing up on the net. Someone should come up with an astronaught mission
patch - some poor soul staring up at the sky with his hands in his pocket
wearing a ball and chain painted to look like the earth.


New patch: 'Containeration'

Catchy don't you think?

;-)

Dave