[Moonman62]

Those Soviet “trash can” are actually far more economical and have far better safety records then the overrated “shuttle”.

No argument there. The Shuttle was a poorly designed, extremely expensive astronaut killer. Even though I will admit it had inspirational value, as did the "blank check" programs of the 1960's. The Russian rockets are cheap, but that doesn't stop Russia from charging us a fortune per astronaut.

I believe the Spacex system will be cheaper than the Russian rockets if all goes as planned.

[ravager]

“, but that doesn't stop Russia from charging us a fortune per astronaut.”

Its supply an demand. How many space programs are out there that can ferry astronauts on a regular basis?

“Spacex system will be cheaper than the Russian rockets if all goes as planned.”

Highly doubt it will be cheaper.

[ravager]

US and Russia lost their perspective on real “space exploration”. Both US and Russia got pre-occupied with tossing bigger and more expensive toys into space. US had their “skylab”, “shuttle”, “hubble”, “ISS” and Russians had their “Salyut” and “Mir”. All of the were a big waste of money. Each of those programs were all about spending billions of dollars maintaining expensive, poorly designed and accident prone giant contraptions in space that had very little commercial/scientific value.

It only gave India and China ample time to play catch up. Both India and China stayed out of the whole ISS nonsense and are aiming for REAL exploration of space starting with the Moon.