Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!ucbvax!CMR.ICST.NBS.GOV!roberts
From: roberts@CMR.ICST.NBS.GOV (John Roberts)
Newsgroups: sci.space
Subject: US/USSR costs
Message-ID: <8903170353.AA25291@cmr.icst.nbs.gov>
Date: 17 Mar 89 03:53:33 GMT
Sender: daemon@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU
Organization: National Institute of Standards and Technology
Lines: 41


>    I find it interesting in the middle of the manned vs unmanned debat here
>the Soviets maintain a continously crewed space station while sending at 
>the same time their most complicated interplanetary mission to Mars.  Maybe
>we should learn a bit from their style of space operations.
 
>                                                      Glenn Chapman
>                                                      MIT Lincoln Lab

One thing I would like to learn about the Soviet space program is how much
it costs. I have seen numerous postings on the net comparing the American
and Soviet space programs, but never a solid attempt to estimate the
actual cost to the Soviets of a specific launch or of their entire space
program. It is probable that the cost to launch a person into orbit is
less than that of the US, but by how much? I suspect that the quoted price
of $10 million for a launch is heavily subsidized. There are at least three
plausible incentives for maintaining an artificially low rate:
 - Prestige: It is politically valuable to be able to claim that you can
     conduct a manned launch for only $10 million.
 - Foreign Exchange: The USSR has only a limited supply of Western currency
     for the purchase of food, technology, and military secrets (at bargain
     rates). Thus a US dollar can be considerably more useful to the Soviets
     than its exchange equivalent in rubles.
 - Economies of scale: The ability to maintain a high volume of launches
     and to accelerate the learning curve (and possibly to discourage the
     competition) can make it economically attractive to sell products or
     services for less than the actual cost. This has been a favorite
     Japanese strategy for years.

Similarly, the Energiya is a fine booster, and has enjoyed two demonstration
launches, but this does not guarantee that it is not fabulously expensive
to build and launch.

To reiterate my main point, I have seen many *qualitative* comparisons
of the costs of the Soviet and American space programs, with the general
"feel" that the Soviet program is more cost-efficient, but unless there
is a reasonable estimate of the actual numbers, a *quantitative* 
comparison is impossible, and the usefulness of any resultant analysis
is severely limited.
                                   John Roberts
                                   roberts@cmr.icst.nbs.gov