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Trump on Falcon Heavy: "I'm so used to hearing different numbers with NASA"
During a cabinet meeting on Thursday inside the White House, President Donald Trump called attention to several model rockets on the table before him. They included an Atlas V, a Falcon 9, a Space Launch System, and more. The president seemed enthused to see the launch vehicles. "Before me are some rocket ships," the president said. "You haven't seen that for this country in a long time."
Then, in remarks probably best characterized as spur of the moment, the president proceeded to absolutely demolish the government's own effort to build rockets by noting the recent launch of the Falcon Heavy rocket. He cited the cost as $80 million. (The list price on SpaceX's website is $90 million.)
"I noticed the prices of the last one they say cost $80 million," Trump said. "If the government did it, the same thing would have cost probably 40 or 50 times that amount of money. I mean literally. When I heard $80 million, I'm so used to hearing different numbers with NASA.''
NASA has not, in fact, set a price for flying the SLS rocket. But Ars has previously estimated that, including the billions of dollars in development cost, the per-flight fees for the SLS rocket will probably be close to $3 billion. Indeed, the development costs of SLS and its ground systems between now and its first flight could purchase 86 launches of the privately developed Falcon Heavy rocket. So President Trump's estimate of NASA's costs compared to private industry does not appear to be wildly off the mark.
[*] SLS: Space Launch System
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(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Friday March 09 2018, @06:17PM (4 children)
Doesn't have time to learn every new topic? Nonsense. The old bastard under discussion has had a lot of time to learn every topic there is to learn. He was born in 1946? What the hell did he spend all his time on since then? I realize he did the wine, women, and song thing - but did he just waste all the rest of his time?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 09 2018, @06:54PM
That's a known effect that Twitter has on time.
(Score: 3, Touché) by khallow on Friday March 09 2018, @10:22PM
Sounds like he spent a lot of time managing things, like construction projects.
You argument is terribad for the simple reason that assumes he did something merely because he had the time to do something. I could argue the same about 8,000 meter peaks. Trump would have had plenty of time to hit all fourteen therefore he must have done them all. He had plenty of time to fly a human-powered aircraft around the world, therefore he must have done it. He had plenty of time to individually insult every person on the Earth whose name begins with "Reginald", therefore he must have done it.
Opportunity != accomplishment.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 10 2018, @05:25AM (1 child)
Trump does not drink alcohol. Admittedly, he probably made up for it with more of the other two.
(Score: 3, Funny) by realDonaldTrump on Saturday March 10 2018, @06:22AM
I don't sing, I'm no musician. But I MORE than made up for it, believe me.