I assume he was making a joke about "hollywood accounting" where people cook the books to make movies look like they do not make a profit, in order to cheat actors dumb enough to get paid out of the profits.

Certainly all government contracts in the US have the same kind of funny accounting going on. I had been thinking of SpaceX, who is quite up front about the real costs of their flights. But India might very well be like SLS in that there is no way to tell how many untold billions are blown on the thing. Obviously the $25M stated did not include development costs.

Slightly more successful than this.

if they can really put this thing in orbit for $25M that would be one heck of a good deal. Wikipedia says the payload is 10,000kg to LEO, which would make it half the cost of a Falcon 9 with about 3/4ths of the payload. And even if this is understated, it still looks to be a pretty good $/kg rate.

So... yes?

Huh, growing crops in a desert is not such a great idea, isn't it?

Agreed, "those that do not study history..."

But really, a Liberal Arts degree is useless. Liberal Arts classes can be quite useful.

But perhaps our AC friend should not not be in any higher education at all. It sounds like he can't (or couldn't) make the cut.

Reminds me of the late 90's when I graduated. Got my first real job, pre-bubble, and the amount I was making wasn't really all that impressive, but a full time salary is a full time salary. My uncle exclaimed "You make THAT much? Man, how do I get into that industry?"

My reply was, and still is, "If you ask that question, you can't."

This isn't sunken cost as much as pork barrel. Someone promised a Senator from Mississippi that hey would get 300+ million dollars from NASA and by god he was going to get it regardless of how much of a waste of money it is.

Also not surprising that this was from the South where they are against big government, but pro pork barrel.

Ahh good point.

Then I will restate as: What is the point of comparing all European rockets to American rockets? Different people developed different rockets, so you can not make assumptions about quality by comparing rockets from different manufacturers.

If only Napoleon III used Uranium utensils.

It was pick one, and they picked "impossible to use".

A graphene condom for me would be the same as a space elevator.

That is the most real, authentic, hysterical laugh of my entire life.

Nope, that wont help you.

Why would I include rockets from a different company when determining quality?

Do we lump Microsoft and Apple together when discussing quality of their software, since they are both from the USA?