Why the US can beat China: The Facts about SpaceX Costs
Although it's a bit of an apple to oranges comparison Copenhagen suborbitals are on the trajectory to launching a human into space in around three years time. In a months time they'll have their first testflight from Bornholm in the baltic sea. They're doing this whole thing based on nothing but sponsors and goodwill. Their budget is around $8000 a month - orders of magnitude lower than spacex. They also built the worlds largest homemade submarine btw.<p>Until now they've developed solid rocket boosters, parachutes, recovery programs, astrouanut survival and cockpit, etc. etc. and have not run into major problems yet.<p>Some links:<p>Website: <a href="http://www.copenhagensuborbitals.com" rel="nofollow">http://www.copenhagensuborbitals.com</a><p>Static test of solid rocket booster (110.000 HP): <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3g_xjGOJRws&feature=related" rel="nofollow">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3g_xjGOJRws&feature=relat...</a><p>TEDx talk by Christian Von Bengtson: <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ua9oGxNNGd0" rel="nofollow">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ua9oGxNNGd0</a><p>All their technology is open source by the way.<p><i>Shameless plug:</i> These guys survive on donations, and a few months ago I helped start a support organization to help them survive economicvally. It's $20 a month to be a member, and we really need more members so we can get these guys into space. If you feel this is a worthy cause and want to join send me an e-mail (it's in my profile). Our website is <a href="http://raketvenner.dk/" rel="nofollow">http://raketvenner.dk/</a> (currently only in Danish...)