How much money did the Apollo program cost from inception to the first
lunar landing (or in total if that information is unavailible) and how
much money would that be today once adjusted for inflation?

Hello marcsk-ga

Thank-you for your question.

The cost of the Apollo space program is commonly given as $25 billion.
 When adjusted to 2005 dollars this would approximate to $135 billion.

"The cost of the entire Apollo program: USD $25.4 billion -1969
Dollars ($135-billion in 2005 Dollars). [...] Apollo spacecraft and
Saturn rocket cost alone, was about $83-billion 2005 Dollars (Apollo
spacecraft cost $28-billion, Saturn I, IB, V costs about $46-billion
2005 dollars)."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Apollo
http://www.answers.com/topic/project-apollo

"The total cost of the Apollo Program was $25 billion, spent between
1962 and 1972. The program is generally agreed to have been the
supreme technological achievement of a millennium now drawing to a
close, a unifying experience for the human race, and the beginning of
humanity's expansion into the universe."
http://www.ccsn.nevada.edu/planetarium/apollo.html

The yearly NASA budgets can be viewed here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NASA_Budget

A simple way to convert what a 1960's dollar is worth compared to a
2000's dollar is to use the calculator on this web page:
http://eh.net/hmit/compare/

I hope this has answered your question.  Should you require any
further assistance on this subject please do not hesitate to ask for
clarification.

---

Request for Answer Clarification by marcsk-ga on 04 Dec 2005 19:07 PST

Several different standards of conversion are offered on this website
which offer radically different results. Is one scale better than
another for my question or should I just take an average of all of
them?

"A simple way to convert what a 1960's dollar is worth compared to a
2000's dollar is to use the calculator on this web page:
http://eh.net/hmit/compare/"

---

Clarification of Answer by palitoy-ga on 05 Dec 2005 01:25 PST

Hopefully the page itself should give you an insight on to how to
judge which scale to use.  The Consumer Price Index is the one that is
usually used but there are other scales that can be used depending on
the situation.

"# The CPI is most often used to make comparisons partly because it is
the series with which people are most familiar. This series tries to
compare the cost of things the average household buys such as food,
housing, transportation, medical services, etc. For earlier years, it
is the most useful series for comparing the cost of consumer goods and
services. It can be interpreted as how much money would you need today
to buy an item in the year in question if it had changed in price the
same as the average price change.

# The GDP Deflator is similar to the CPI in that it is a measure of
average prices. The "bundle" of goods and services here includes all
things produced in the economy, not just consumer goods and services
that are reflected in the CPI.

# The Unskilled Wage Rate is good way to determine the relative cost
of something in terms of the amount of work it would take to produce,
or the relative time it would take to earn its cost. It can also be
useful in comparing different wages over time. The unskilled wage is a
more consistent measure than the average wage for making comparisons
over time.

# The GDP per capita is an index of the economy's average output per
person and is closely correlated with the average income. It can be
useful in comparing different incomes over time.

# The GDP is the market value of all goods and services produced in a
year. Comparing an expenditure using this measure, tells you how much
money in the comparable year would be the same percent of all output."
http://eh.net/hmit/compare/