“more than $100 billion to build and support”
Up from the $8 billion that was the alleged fab/launch cost in the 1980s when the thing started (’member “Space Station Freedom”, folks?)
I remember “Space Station Freedom” quite well. I did mechanical engineer support on the conceptual design in the early ‘90s, and still have a CAD rendering in my office.
That is still probably less than the foreign aid that we give out every year, and definitely less than the pallets of cash we gave to Iran in one shot.