When we envision extraordinarily expensive objects, the first items that come to mind are usually paintings by some medieval maestro, a billionaire's superyacht, or a one-of-a-kind car. But the priciest object that mankind has ever made isn't sitting here on Earth, but floating above the sky. We're talking about an object that is arguably the best example of multinational collaboration in the modern age, and has served as a pillar for humanity's quest to become an interplanetary species. Say hello to the space station, a technical marvel that also holds a Guinness World Record as the most expensive man-made object ever. In 2030, the massive floating station will be retired. The whole structure is so complex and massive that the decommissioning mission is going to cost nearly a billion dollars.
So, how much did it actually cost to build? The European Space Agency (ESA), which has been a core member of the space station project since its inception, estimates the cost at around EUR 100 billion (approximately $117 billion). But according to more estimates, the space station has apparently run a bill worth $150 billion to develop and build. That's more than the annual GDP of numerous countries across Europe, Asia, and the African continent, as per the latest data accumulated by the International Monetary Fund (IMF).
In addition to the staggering construction cost, NASA is currently burning through three billion dollars each year in operational costs and maintenance, as per a 2021 audit, while the net cost of this exercise is closer to four billion dollars and shared among partner nations sharing a residence. As per the ISS Program Office, the annual operating costs will remain "stable" at $3.2 billion per year until it's gradually decommissioned.
A tale of cost overruns
The first expedition to take residence on the space station landed towards the end of 2000. But the journey was not without its fair share of setbacks. An astronomical budget was one of the biggest concerns. The original cost of the project conveyed to Congress was just $8 billion, but by 1990, the estimates had already shot past a projected $120 billion. Citing experts, The New York Times described it as a "case study in cost escalation." During a U.S. House of Representatives hearing in 2001, it was revealed that the US portion of the ISS was supposed to cost $17.4 billion as of 1993, but rose to $21.3 billion by 1998, and swelled further over the years.
One of the main culprits was iterations, or as the hearing's Congressional Research Service member Marcia S. Smith put it, "redesign followed redesign." Redesigns meant heavily modifying or scrapping prior work, re-engineering, and extra integration and testing costs. The hearing also highlighted a bevy of issues, such as delayed schedules (compounded by inflation, increasing labor and material costs), hardware going obsolete midway through the project, underestimating the complexity of tasks such as life support systems, hardware failures, and missed contribution targets by Russia due to funding shortages and technical shortcomings.