Cost
In 1999, after the successful flight of AMS-01, the total cost of the AMS program was estimated to be $33 million, with AMS-02 planned for flight to the ISS in 2003. After the Space Shuttle Columbia disaster in 2003, and after a number of technical difficulties with the construction of AMS-02, the cost of the program ballooned to an estimated $1.5 billion.
The cost of the program was criticized heavily during the period when it appeared that it would not be flown, and remains controversial.
Read more about this topic: Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer
Famous quotes containing the word cost:
“Greeting people doesn’t cost you anything except a roll of your tongue.”
—Chinese proverb.
“Apparently, a democracy is a place where numerous elections are held at great cost without issues and with interchangeable candidates.”
—Gore Vidal (b. 1925)
“Each is under the most sacred obligation not to squander the material committed to him, not to sap his strength in folly and vice, and to see at the least that he delivers a product worthy the labor and cost which have been expended on him.”
—Anna Julia Cooper (1859–1964)