Elon Musk says that the Falcon 9 -Dragon crew configuration can beat the Russians cost per astronaut to the international space station by about $32-million per astronaut if his commercial space launch operation is succcessful in proving the viability of the booster and spacecraft in the coming few years.
"At Space X we feel pretty confident in being able to do it for $20 million per seat," Musk told a recent conference call with reporters. That is about 40% of what it costs to contract astronaut launches with the Russian Space Agency, he said. The Space-X benchmark price is based upon flying four Dragon crew capsules per year with seven astronauts each.
The Russian space agency Roscosmos last May raised the charge to NASA to fly American astronauts at the rate of $51-million per seat to the International Space Station beginning in 2012. Virginia-based Space Adventures, Ltd. notes that there may be a significant potential price difference due to Russian "training and language requirements."
Space-X is building the Falcon-9 while Orbital Sciences Corporation is building the Taurus-2 to mount crew capsules atop the boosters to deliever government or commercial astronauts to low Earth orbit following numerous test flights with cargo to the space station. But as former NASA Administrator Michael Griffin noted this week, there is no commercial launch option for orbital astronauts today with most experts projecting crewed commercial flights by 2016.
Anderson has noted that Space Adventures could market seats at $20-million much more broadly to the public than is done to today using the Russian-made Soyuz. Increased space tourist demand would require a destination other than the ISS such as a Bigelow Space Hotel.
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