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Asked by meg123 to Amy, Karen, Sarah, Vijay, Will on 18 Jun 2012.
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Will Reynolds answered on 18 Jun 2012:
Hi again Meg! Wow you have a lot of good questions today! Quite simply its so expensive because we need very strong high tech spaceships to survive the harsh conditions in space. The outside needs to be heat proof and strong enough to stay intact in a very strong vacuum. It needs to have all the navigation equiptment to calculate its position and move around, It needs to carry enough oxygen for the astronaughts to breath and it also takes a huge amount of fuel to get it into space in the first place; 500,000 gallons of liquid oxygen and hydrogen. Each space shuttle costs 1.7 billion dollars to make and 450 million dollars to launch! Hope this helps.
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Comments
meg123 commented on :
Thanks so much will! I’ve always wanted to know that! You really know your stuff! Thanks again! How much would it be?
Will commented on :
How much would it cost to go into space? Im not quite sure but there are some very rich people who have paid to do it. Apparently the russians will take you for $30 million and Virgin Galactic will take you to the highest part of the atmosphere, just before space for $200,000. Let me know how it goes!
meg123 commented on :
ahhh i really wanted to go into space! Why does oxygen cost so much?
Will commented on :
Its not massively expensive, about $2500 per kilogram, which is not as much as other chemicals but it has to be produced from the electrolysis of water (splitting water into hydrogen and oxygen using an electrical current) which can need a lot of energy.
meg123 commented on :
how does it take off what reactions take place?
meg123 commented on :
or are there any?