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And, Curie also stated that NASA did 'its best to credibly estimate the costs" at each stage.
Well, if you remember when the shuttle program first started up in the early 1980s, NASA estimated that shuttles would lift off every two weeks. That didn't quite work out.
A quick calculation would mean 26 launches per year for 30 years = 780. But, we only had 135 missions -- only 17% of the estimated number.
And, the U.S. space agency widely estimated the cost of each mission in the early 1980s much lower than it actually cost throughout the program.
In 2011, the incremental cost per flight of the space shuttle was estimated at $450 million, or $18,000 per kilogram to low Earth orbit (LEO).
Page three concludes.
