Posted: Mon, Dec 23, 2002, 10:15 AM ET (1515 GMT)
The full cost to develop a second-generation reusable launch vehicle (RLV) under NASA's Space Launch Initiative (SLI) could have cost $35 billion, Florida Today reported Sunday. The article cited Bush administration budget documents in which NASA concluded that the cost to build a full-fledged RLV designed to replace the space shuttle would have far exceeded the $10 billion originally estimated when SLI started. NASA commissioned four independent cost reviews which each found that the cost to develop the RLV would have approached $30-35 billion. NASA had planned to split the costs of developing the RLV with industry, but the near collapse of the commercial launch market since the late 1990s made it unlikely that private companies could afford any significant investment in such a project. Those extraordinarily high costs were the reason why NASA announced last month it was restructuring SLI, essentially ending efforts to develop a second-generation RLV for the foreseeable future.

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•  Florida Today article