Comments by "Mikko Rantalainen" (@MikkoRantalainen) on "Revolutionizing Flight! The Amazing Potential of the CFM RISE Engine." video.

@johnburns4017 USA won the marketing race to space because we still haven't beaten "the first human on a natural planet or satellite" achievement. Next step on that ladder is "First human on Mars" and we are still pretty far from that. And for general public the marketing race is the only thing that matters even if geeks could consider other factors, too.
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@miscbits6399 The space shuttle project was indeed pretty silly from the start. Raising any mass to the orbit is hideously expensive so having a reusable space shuttle with dry weight of 78000 kg was always going to be pretty bad plan. Assuming a low average $1000/kg for the fuel costs alone to get something to the orbit, the 78000 kg dry weight for the shuttle put minimum extra cost to $78 million per launch for the empty shuttle alone. Any real cargo would be on top of that. As a comparision, total cost for a single SpaceX Falcon 9 mission is 50–67 million USD.
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