[cstross]

I notice that the news media are bigging up the *private enterprise* angle for some reason -- marketing of commercial transport services maybe?

But I also note that Odysseus cost NASA a little over $100M on a fixed price contract, per Ars Technica.

By way of comparison, the Indian government's Chandrayaan-3 mission, the lander of which touched down in 2023, cost roughly $90M.

So private space isn't automatically cheaper than 100% government agency-run missions: it just depends on the agency.

[edot]

$90M goes a lot further in India, though. But yes, you’re still correct that this mission doesn’t prove that private is cheaper. I’m sure that Intuitive Machines took a big loss on this in order to get the deal, and it still cost this much.

[bluGill]

Does it? For the person who cleans that restrooms that money goes a lot farther. For the quick boot camp and we will write html it also goes farther. However for the good engineers it doesn't go nearly as far. Great engineers in India are in demand and their prices have gone up to match. I wouldn't attempt a project like this without a lot of great engineers. (Great engineers in India make less than the US equivalent, but the difference is narrowing)

[inemesitaffia]

The NASA equivalent pays much less.

But they have perks like chauffeurs and household staff that wouldn't be available to the equivalent in the USA

[oldnetguy]

You are correct, the costs of salaries alone should show a significant difference. I wish people would actually have real conversations about what things actually cost per country. It's disingenuous to compare the USA and India without a true cost analysis