>>13918297Apollo program cost approx $25B, roughly $257B (adjusted for inflation)
This was for everything -- the R&D, the government contracts, the labor, the promotion — the budget for all parts of a decade-long program.
Within each broad category (eg, rocket engines) you have the incredible volume of subcategories (eg, multiple rockets for different stages of launch, plus ascent engines versus descent engines), SLS (short for “Space Launch System”), has already cost $22B after 10 years in development, and it still has not gotten off the ground.
This is just one small fraction of the mission. No lunar lander, no spacesuits, no moon buggies, none of the incredible volume of other separate mission aspects, and it is single-handedly cost more than 10% of the entire Apollo budget with inflation adjustment.
And that’s just costs to date, It hasn’t even had a single successful test yet! It could cost $50B or $100B and never even launch.
We already spent billions trying to get to the moon in the failed Constellation program launched by Bush, before Obama canceled it, Bush had said we’d be on the moon again in 2020.
None of the parts of the Artemis Program are done, or even remotely close to being done, we have no rocketship. We have no rocket engine. We have no lunar lander. We have no spacesuits. Nothing.
If it cost $260B in the 1960s, it should cost a tiny fraction to replicate in 2021, the cost efficiencies of more advanced technology should offset the cost of inflation.
