I would even question why construction costs so much in US vs. say China. It is all entirely full of regulations. Not labor. Material costs are probably minscule % if you scoure the entire supply chain for regulations.
The discussion whether certain regulations (OSHA) are needed or not is an entirely different conversation, but having worked on large government/military contracts ($1B+); I have seen the shitshow with my own eyes and mind.
Gross incompetence of Gov (and its contractors) x Regulatory Capture x Lack of Innovation = Current dysfunction.
I am not saying China is the role model for safety regulations, but we need to take a deep look at what's necessary and what's not.
SpaceX will make reusable rockets a few orders of magnitude cheaper than anything NASA has produced. And current NASA administration has been forthcoming in working with private industry (SpaceX, BO, Rocketlab, Firefly, etc.). Good.
> I would even question why construction costs so much in US vs. say China.
The difference is in manufacturing and labor costs. If you want to build cheap, you can do so in Mexico at half the manufacturing and labor costs of China, which is about 1/7th that of good ol' fashioned USofA manufacturing and labor.
You should have already known this. Nothing to see here.
The discussion whether certain regulations (OSHA) are needed or not is an entirely different conversation, but having worked on large government/military contracts ($1B+); I have seen the shitshow with my own eyes and mind.
Gross incompetence of Gov (and its contractors) x Regulatory Capture x Lack of Innovation = Current dysfunction.
I am not saying China is the role model for safety regulations, but we need to take a deep look at what's necessary and what's not.
SpaceX will make reusable rockets a few orders of magnitude cheaper than anything NASA has produced. And current NASA administration has been forthcoming in working with private industry (SpaceX, BO, Rocketlab, Firefly, etc.). Good.