It’s all relative

The US has currently spent $420,000,000 on NASA’s Phoenix Mars Mission. Put another way, that’s about $1/mile [of space travel]. About the same as your SUV.

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3 Responses to “It’s all relative”

  1. DJH
    June 13th at 1:17 pm

    What’s the math involved in coming to a $1/mile cost for driving an SUV? Gas sure doesn’t work out, and amortizing ownership costs doesn’t seem to help much, unless we’re assuming someone drives only a few thousands miles and then drives off a cliff.

  2. Good on ya, NASA! : smartarded
    June 13th at 3:17 pm

    […] NASA’s Phoenix Mars Mission gets the same mileage as an SUV (via) TAG’D: takeout […]

  3. Aaron Mentele
    June 14th at 1:18 am

    @DJH -
    Scenario 1: $667 / mo for a 1,000 mi / mo lease. That’s $0.67 / mile. Assume 12 mpg at $4 / gal. That’s $0.33 / mile. Total: $1 / mile.

    Scenario 2: $750 / mo for a 1,000 mi / mo lease. That’s $0.75 / mile. Assume 16 mpg at $4 / gal. That’s $0.25 / mile. Total: $1 / mile.

    Scenario 3: $1,050 / mo for a purchased vehicle driven 1,000 mi / mo. That’s $1.05 / mile. 12.7 mpg at $3.79 / gal. That’s $0.30 / mile. Total: $1.35 / mile.

    The first two are hypothetical examples working backward from the $1 / mi I used. If you don’t find them believable, feel free to reference the third [actual] scenario. That’s the qx56 I bought shortly after becoming a parent. I sold it in April after driving it for 3 years. Any equity I had built up was lost because the rest of the world realized the stupidity of driving these things shortly before I did.

    Thanks for your question.

    ps: I left out insurance and repair / maintenance costs to keep it simple.

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