Why are the Soyuz and Progress spacecrafts about as expensive as the Soyuz rocket?

Question

I have found this text:

"In billion rubles:

For Progress (without the cost of ~2.8 tonnes of cargo):

• Rocket: ~1.25 (Soyuz 2.1a) = 20.83 mil dollars

• Ship: ~0.9 (Progress MS) = 15 mil dollars

• Logistic: ~0.15 (delivery of rocket and ship to cosmodrome and storage before launch)

• Launch: ~0.3 (preparation for launch, services and fuel)

• Tracking: ~0.3 (control of orbital flight, docking, undocking)

• Total: ~2.9 = 2900/60 = 48,6 mil dollars

For Soyuz (without the cost of 0.3 tonnes cargo and crew training):

• Rocket: ~0.9 (Soyuz FG) or ~1.5 (Soyuz 2.1b) = 15 to 25 mil dollars

• Ship: ~1.4 (Soyuz MS) = 23.33 mil dollars

• Logistic: ~0.15 (delivery of rocket and ship to the cosmodrome and storage before launch)

• Launch: ~0.45 (preparation for launch, launch services, fuel, crew preparation)

• Tracking: ~0.4 (control of orbital flight, docking, undocking, landing)

• Landing: ~0.1 (search and rescue service)

• Total: ~3.4 or ~4.0 = 3400/60 or 4000/60 = 56,6 mil dollars or 66,6 mil dollars.

It is not commercial prices, but basically reimbursement from government to government launcher providers, fully government-owned rocket producer, and partially government-owned ship producer (as RSC Energia is closed stock company, where government owns only about 62%).

Yes, the cost per seat for Soyuz is 19 to 22 mil dollars plus 3 mil dollars for crew training)"

Source: https://www.quora.com/How-much-does-it-cost-the-Russian-Federal-Space-Agency-to-launch-a-single-Progress-or-Soyuz-spacecraft-to-the-ISS

The question is: Why are the Soyuz and Progress spacecrafts about as expensive as the rocket? For me, it appears that the two spaceships should be less expensive than a locomotive like the one in the pictures below. The orbital and the descent module, a sphere and bell, respectively, do not seem to be quite expensive. The instrument and propulsion module might be more costly but the fuel tanks and engines are quite small. The electronics again can not be so expensive. 400 people with an average salary of 2000 US dollars working for one year to a Soyuz spacecraft would mean 9.6 mil dollars but I do not believe that so many people are involved.

Soyuz spacecraft

Siemens locomotive

Interiour.

Source: Amtrak will acquire 75 new Siemens Charger diesel locomotives for $850 million to replace aging power in its National Network locomotive fleet.

Answer 1

The first problem here is that Aerospace parts can cost whatever those involved want them to cost this week so the listed numbers are probably only accurate to the nearest decimal point, but it is probably a reasonable approximation that the crew section would cost about as much to make as the rest of the rocket and easily be more.

Answering the question in the title, while smaller there is a lot more stuff inside the three units of Soyuz including various redundant or intrinsically safe elements that need verification and certification processes (one guy does the job, two check him and a forth checks the qualifications of the first three). It is also physically difficult to work on since much of the equipment goes inside pressure vessels, this prevents working in parallel (only one person can really be 'inside' at a time) and will mean if part X fails test parts Y and Z then need to be removed to get X out, then re-installed and re-tested once X is back without damaging something else. Doing final assembly and integration of something like this can easily lead to backwards progress as more things come out than go in on a given day, and stakes are high if something is damaged in the process.

Answering the 'why is a train cheaper than the rocket' from the body.

In general mass production lowers the cost per unit, especially where the part is complex and test intensive since the opportunities to spend a million or so building and verifying a custom jig to do task X do not exist.

For the train these presumably came from a factory that makes similar machinery regularly, has a workforce skilled in this form of project and where there is critical mass in people and equipment locally for this type of manufacturing. They are also making something where adding a margin for manufacturing defects is easier as total weight is far less, and where it is feasible to do shake down at the factory and fix any loose covers, missing clips etc and avoid expensive quality control steps.

Only a couple of Soyuz fly each year, so the Soyuz is firmly in the pit of despair in terms of manufacturing, making enough per year that the cost per unit matters, but not so many that they can optimize for scale.

So a major part of the price tag for both rocket and capsule is the intrinsic costs of keeping factories open, special machines working and staff qualified and would not change that if they made one per year or fifty. These costs are the bit that make the numbers tricky, since they change depending on what other work the various factories and people do while not making rocket parts.

Using older design can in many ways make the situation worse, since the equipment and people to make the thing will need to be brought online. You may only want one more of a thing this year, but the factory ends up making 100 getting the process right and one way or another this cost shows up on the final price tag. Avoiding this means holding and tracking large amounts of inventory, where if a train manufacturer find they are short a widget they can just go and buy another one from any of several suppliers.