[kllrnohj]

The cost of a Shuttle launch was $450M and carried 24,400 kg & 7 people to LEO. The only thing that can compete with that short of the Saturn V is the Delta IV-Heavy, which is $340M per launch and can carry 28,790 kg to LEO.

[lukeschlather]

Where does that $450M figure come from? I'm looking at Wikipedia where I presume you took that from, and it says the total cost adjusted for inflation was $196 billion, with 135 launches, that (with straight division) averages out to 1.5 billion adjusted for inflation over the life of the shuttle.