SPACE X’s Falcon 9 rocket and Crew Dragon blasted off from the Kennedy Space
Center on June 13, 2020 – relaunching American space flight after NASA was forced
to retire its Space Shuttle in 2011.
The Crew Dragon’s flight marks a special milestone in the
history of America for being the first that takes astronauts into the orbit. It
is also the first privately built spacecraft to take a successful flight. The two
crewmembers of Crew Dragon – Bon Behnken and Doug Hurley have safely reached the
orbit and later docked with the ISS on May 31.
NASA also benefited from the overall expenditure of Crew
Dragon. According to the news report, NASA paid both SpaceX and Boeing contracts
worth $3.1 billion and $4.8 billion respectively. This is deemed as the
cheapest spaceflight development effort in close to 60 years. A NASA audit also
concluded that the price per seat on SpaceX is significantly more cost-effective
than their previous programs.
In fact, the Apollo program had a cost per seat of $390
million and the figures for Space Shuttle come in at $170 million. However,
SpaceX Crew Dragon will cost NASA around $55 million per seat, while Boeing’s
Starliner adds up to $90 million.
The figures by SpaceX is considerably lower than any other
option, making a winning situation for NASA.
