SpaceX Falcon 9 Relatively Cheap to NASA's New Pad

An anonymous reader writes: As debate over the future of spaceflight rages on – and as the axe all but falls on NASA’s mission back to the moon and beyond – the successful launch of SpaceX’s Falcon 9 two weeks ago proved at least one of the virtues of the private option: it’s a heckava lot cheaper than government-funded rides to space.

In fact, the whole system was built for less than the cost of the service tower that was to be used for NASA’s proposed future spaceflight vehicle (yup, the service tower is finished, but the rocket isn’t, and the whole program may well be cancelled anyway).