Originally Posted by chazbird

Companies can frequently make money any way they want. NASA has already sent multiple unmanned probes to Mars for a reasonable $700-$800 million, total cost. They collected much more data than a manned mission to Mars can ever hope to. The Moon/Mars initiative is a 30 year program, and is supposed to cost $400 billion. But some number crunchers at NASA, who are familiar with NASA cost overrun history, estimate it to be closer to $800 billion, or even more. (I've heard a trillion, and for what, exactly?) Let's see, it went to two primary contractors, with NASA essentially administering it. Those two contractors will be making some serious money. Even if it never flies (and there's a good chance it won't - I may not live long enough to find out), there's serious money in that program for "private companies". One of the sure fire mechanisms for the profit in that program will be the circular argument between everyone: "Oh, its those TCO's" (Technical change orders).