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- From: strider@clotho.acm.rpi.edu (Greg Moore)
- Subject: Stupid Shut Cost arguements (was Re: Terminal Velocity of DCX?
- Message-ID: <9gt204c@rpi.edu>
- Nntp-Posting-Host: acm.rpi.edu
- Organization: The Voice of Fate
- References: <ewright.724533084@convex.convex.com> <71877@cup.portal.com> <1992Dec22.160715.28828@iti.org>
- Date: Wed, 23 Dec 1992 04:03:15 GMT
- Lines: 32
-
- In article <1992Dec22.160715.28828@iti.org> aws@iti.org (Allen W. Sherzer) writes:
- >
- >This number does not include NASA overhead, amortization of the orbiter,
- >amortization of Shuttle development costs, and a host of other costs. Adding
- >those in puts the cost at well over a billion per flight. Hell, interest
- >costs on development alone adds over a quarter billion per flight (BTW,
- >this interest is not a sunk cost since it is part of the national debt and
- >we are paying for it even now).
- >
- I thought you said that McDac or SDIO was going to treat
- development costs of DC-1 as sunk costs. Or is that just DC-X (in
- which case, what exactly does that mean?). If this is teh case, than
- you have to treat the shuttle development costs as sunk costs.
- As for amortization of the orbiter, the same rule applies to that
- as any aircraft or spacecraft, including, DC-1. The more you
- fly it, the less this matter. Right now, if you stopped all flights,
- you could argue this cost (excluding interest) is about $150 million
- a flight. (10 flights/orbiter, $1.5 Billion per orbiter). This
- number will shrink.
- As for interest based on the national debt, that's a slippery
- one what I won't touch. One question I have though, will you treat
- any government financing for DC-X,Y the same way, i.e. consider
- interested on national debt?)
-
- > Allen
- >--
- >+---------------------------------------------------------------------------+
- >| Allen W. Sherzer | "A great man is one who does nothing but leaves |
- >| aws@iti.org | nothing undone" |
- >+----------------------123 DAYS TO FIRST FLIGHT OF DCX----------------------+
-
-
-