I think there's a difference in methodology here. When those numbers of the shuttle are listed, they're including all the upfront R&D spread across the life-cycle of the program. I believe the Falcon costs disregard all those as a sunk cost and only list the actual "launch" costs
I think this might miss the point. Is the $70MM/launch tag including the R&D? Does it include the R&D that is essentially given to SpaceX through their SpaceAct agreement?
Imagine if Tesla gave me all their R&D and manufacturing know-how and offered to help me out whenever I hit a snag, wouldn't I look great by showing everyone how much cheaper I can build an EV? That's why I think it's a bit of a faulty comparison. Still great, but some of these comparison border on the edge of hype
I'm not going to argue that the shuttle wasn't a boondoggle. The same reasons it was are the same reasons it's not a great comparison. Very different mission scope/requirements, having to conform to multiple masters (DoD and NASA) regarding the design, etc. The shuttle was required to do things F9 is not.
Again, I don't think that's an apt comparison. The NAFCOM numbers used in that calculation don't include things like program support costs, contingency costs, contractor fees, etc. Those are usually baked into the NASA figures sighted though. Add on top of that, NASA will sometimes independently fund R&D related directly to issues experiences. SpaceX can be the direct beneficiaries of that research without having any of the costs on their books.
I'm confident SpaceX would still be substantially lower than NASA if they had, but we need to be consistent in the methodology or it just becomes the equivalent of cherry picking data to underscore an already valid point.
