The President's Space Initiative Speech

If the Apollo program cost 100B 35 yrs ago it would easily cost over 1
Trillion today. It could easily be ten times that much (or more). Last
time (apollo) the technology was already there (chemical rockets for ICBMs).
We need to fix the national balance sheet over the next 20 yrs before
embarking on this adventure.

Mike
MU-2


"plumb bob" wrote in message
news:4RnNb.70198$na.40677@attbi_s04...
"Morgans" wrote in message
...

So how much per person per year is it going to cost? Pass the plate.
I'll
pay my share.

I'm guessing a minimum of $1 Trillion over 20 years. The Apollo project
cost
$100 billion as far as I recall. The Bush I project, which was nixed, had
a
cost estimate of $500 billion. Therefore, I do not believe $1 Trillion is
unrealistic.

There are 130 million individual tax returns filed every year. Individual
tax revenue trumps corporate tax revenue 5:1 (go find the IRS tax stats).
In
other words, corporations don't pay much tax at all. It's basically going
to
be all on us to foot the bill.

$1 Trillion / 130 million = $7,700 per taxpayer.

Over 20 years = $7,700 / 20 = $385 every year, MINIMUM. And that is
assuming
that NASA sticks to budget (this would be a government programme so that
is
quite unrealistic)

I do not want to pay that money until

a) terrorism is defeated
b) we can get health care coverage at least as good as any other 3rd world
country
c) we are running a surplus
d) a balanced budget is guaranteed

Not to mention that Bush does not have a clue how much it will really
cost.
He does not care - it's not his money. He just needs this to win an
election.

-- Plumb Bob