The International Space Station is often called the most expensive object ever built. Roughly how much has it cost all partner nations combined, in US dollars?
Try it yourself first
💰 Money · USD
Enter an estimate in USD.
Notepad
End a line with = to calculate it.
Show the answer and the method
Answer
About 150 billion USD
Fifteen countries share the bill, and the station was assembled in orbit from pieces delivered over more than 40 flights.
How to estimate it
Add three parts. Assembly took about 35 Space Shuttle flights at roughly 1.5 billion dollars each: 52 billion. Building the modules, trusses and solar arrays cost perhaps 40 billion. Running the station costs about 3 billion a year, and it has operated for 25 years: 75 billion. 52 + 40 + 75 = 167 billion. The usual estimate is about 150 billion US dollars.
Source: NASA Office of Inspector General; ESA
More questions: Money
- During its hyperinflation, Zimbabwe issued the banknote with the highest face value of modern times in January 2009. How many Zimbabwean dollars was it worth?
- Roughly how many euro banknotes are in circulation?
- How much money comes with a full Nobel Prize in the mid 2020s, in Swedish kronor?
- Roughly how much did it cost to build the Burj Khalifa tower in Dubai, in US dollars?
- Bitcoin's code sets a hard limit on how many coins can ever exist. What is that limit?