Bringing this post from thread on pg 2:
http://www.habitablezone.com/space/messages/19106.html

"For info on the cost of the LM project, I refer you to this source:
http://www.memagazine.org/contents/current/features/onesmall/onesmall.html
[nice article, thanks]
"As expected, the proposal price increased dramatically by the time we finished the negotiations and included all the testing and support items in the contract. The original lunar module proposal was priced at $387 million. After negotiations, the price climbed to approximately $1 billion. By the early 1970s, toward the end of the program, the total cost was closer to $2 billion, approximately a tenth of the total Apollo program cost."

While this isn't completely accurate, $2 billion in 1970 dollars is equavilant to $9.13 billion today. That $50 million per-unit LM price most definitely did not include R&D. Oh, and $50 million in 1969 dollars is equal to $241.28 million today. Inflation calculators are useful things when comparing prices from different eras."
Alright, maybe I misread what you were saying. 2 billion does count as billions. And I thought you meant billions to just develop whereas it was 2 billion in total cost for development and production- the whole shebang. This could include "numerous things", but definitely includes all LM built which were used in Apollo, starting at 11? and going 17? Plus any that can now be found on Earth- don't it's too wild of a guess to say that in total about a dozen or more which were made.

Given all the above, I'm still not convinced that A lunar lander would need to cost more than 50 million per unit. But what I think is pretty irrelevant, since it must prove my point:). My guess is that the rocket needed to win the X-prize would be "similar" in difficulty to rocket needed to for a lunar lander. Yes/no? If yes than I could assume that you think that since they were about equal, that anyone attempting to use a rocket to win the X-prize, doesn't have a hope in hell, unless they are willing to spend more than, say 250 million. Is that roughly, right??

<snip>

"Developing a lunar lander, even one built from off-the-shelf parts, will require the full time effort of dozens of engineers and machinists even if you used the Skunk Works management model. People with that level of skills don't come cheap and you'd need them for at least 2-3 years to build the lander. You'd also need millions of dollars in machining equipment, facilities, etc. Just writing the software for the lander would likely cost upwards of $100 million (good geeks don't come cheap, either) when you count all of the testing necessary for such critical code. Those off-the-shelf components aren't cheap, either.

I support returning to the moon. I even wrote about my concepts for a lunar lander design just last week. However, I also know that building such a design, especially if it's intended to be reusable like I want, will cost at least a billion in R&D, test, fabrication, etc. After the first one is built, building follow-on vehicles would be a lot less expensive."

Well, maybe what you want is too big. It would probably work get for a lunar mining operation, and could be worth the billion or 2 to develop. Could it be possible to make it smaller and cheaper. Develop this sell and to NASA then develop larger verison at lower development cost and sell this to a company wanted to mine lunar water?