During a presentation on the next steps for developing a successor to the Space Shuttle, I was smacked with a crazy set of stats. The Airbus A380, the massive passenger airliner that runs more than $300 million, costs a scant $400 per pound of dry hardware put into the beast. I say scant—by comparison the Space Shuttle costs $21,000 per pound. Even more impressive, at $1,600 per pound, each BlackBerry 8000 series phone costs slightly more than an Apache attack helicopter.

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