None. NASA can probably afford to contract one of the many super-geniuses for their engineering services to get a launch vehicle out in no time flat. Wayne Enterprises and LexCorp are engineering powerhouses, it wouldn’t be surprising if they already had some prototypes done up already.
Elon would probably sue him for unfair competition.
Shouldn’t he be busy being a transitional power source?
I think the bigger concern nobody is addressing is the physics. Yes, while able to throw whatever into space, the initial thrust would place any object under stresses that they are currently not able to withstand. Nothing alive would likely survive the amount of G’s from the thrust. The amount of acceleration placed into a stationary object would likely liquify anything solid. I don’t think they would use his powers for this as it would likely kill anyone and destroy anything else. If he himself is flying it up at a reasonable rate if acceleration, he would likely be able to charge millions, even if cutting the budget in half it’s probably the best thing anybody could hope for, so millions of dollars per event isn’t unreasonable. But him being a superhero, he’d likely donate his earnings to charities or something. Which is noble but also tragic that he has to sacrifice his physical strength for a society that doesn’t praise selflessness. But I think that’s going beyond the scope of the original question
I thought canonically superman uses some kind of magic to be able to keep objects and people safe in specific ways. That’s why if he catches someone at the last second they don’t still die, or why a building can fall over and he can catch it without it just crumbling around him.
See, I was thinking he would just fly them up rather than throw them up.
Then, once in space, he could accelerate them to orbital velocity at the correct point. You’re talking like an hour and a half to three hours worth of work for tens of million dollars for the Superman lift services charity.
And the good thing about a paid, funded charity would be that Superman could help a lot more people without having to personally help those people. I know, by all reasonable stances, the last thing Superman needs is a force multiplier, but having other people working on his behalf would be a force multiplier for the good that he accomplishes.
I assumed you meant this to. Considering most of a rocket is the rocket with fuel and considering its priced per ton usually he should be able be able to bring quite a bit with one rocket shell.
None… He would probably be kept as a test subject and used for his power as needed
I see what you’re saying, but being as that Superman is Superman, there’s no way we would actually be able to keep him down long enough.
Our options pretty much are to overwhelm him with Kryptonite and kill him or let him do what the hell he wants to do and hope it all works out for the best.
American politician: how can we turn his blood into rocket fuel?
Canonically, Superman could be a billionaire overnight. There are literally tons of New World gold at the bottom of the Atlantic, lost to storms during the days of the Spanish and Portuguese Empires.
Additionally, he still has the spaceship that carried him to Earth. A single ‘transistor’ would be worth as much as Microsoft or Apple.
For the sunken treasure, I’d imagine Aquaman has dibs.
I imagine if Superman wanted it, Aquaman would just say, okay buddy.
I think he’d say something more along the lines of ‘blgrglll blub’
As a person, absolutely. As king of Atlantis, there’d probably be a lot of political push-back.
$0. Because first and foremost, he is a goodie-two-shoes who wouldn’t charge for it. And even if he was willing to charge, doing so would mean compromising his secret identity.
He could demand payment in Monero or something.
I disagree. I think Superman would ask for a simple salary of $120k/year for his services.
I mean, the dude still has to make a buck, right? He has to pay rent like anyone else. I see nothing morally wrong with him being compensated a reasonable salary for his efforts. There are moral issues with charging someone for a rescue. And maybe he’s such a goodie-two-shoes that he would avoid charging for that. But Superman billing NASA isn’t the same thing as Superman handing a thousand dollar invoice to someone he just rescued from being run over by a car. One is taking advantage of someone in their most desperate hour. The other is just helping the government save a buck. NASA is perfectly capable of hoisting things into orbit themselves. All Superman is ultimately doing is saving the government some money.
Now, I can imagine Superman being too humble to charge, say, half the cost of what a launch would otherwise make. He would probably feel really bad charging millions of dollars for what to him is nothing more than a light workout.
So instead, I think Superman would just ask for the most reasonable thing possible, the right of every hard working American man - an honest pay for an honest day’s work. And what are the services of Superman worth? Well, surely his services are worth at least as much as the director of NASA makes per year. A search suggests this is about $240k/year. And Superman will certainly be doing as much for NASA as Jared Isaacman is. So why shouldn’t he ask for a relatively modest $120k/year salary for his services, half of Jared’s salary?
As far as secret identity, I’m sure the NSA figured that shit out ages ago. They just have an agreement with him to keep that under wraps. In fact, with superheroes willing to work ‘in the system’, they’ll go as far as to manipulate social media algorithms to suppress the spread of secret identity reveals.
I think that’s the point of the “if” in the question
“More than 40 years after the Challenger Space Shuttle disaster and the end of the Teacher in Space program, Superman was chosen to lift a crew of exclusively science teachers into orbit today. Unfortunately, he was struck by an asteroid containing kryptonite at an altitude of approximately 120 miles. As a result, the vessel and Superman burned up in the atmosphere. The chief of NASA has resigned. The president has ordered Space Force to mount an attack on the planet Krypton.”
A lot, but Superman wouldn’t charge them for it, being a superhero and all.
I mean, but think of all of the money he could make for charity. Superman Launch Services, saves you billions in exchange for millions, a 100% not-for-profit organization.
*100 percent of net profits to be donated to fund superhero sponsorship programs.
Being Superman in particular. There are plenty of ‘superheroes’ who are far less scrupulous.
At least $10.
But would he have the time?
