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Your numbers are not quite right because you're mixing up the "let's expend the rocket" payload with the "let's not expend the rocket" prices for F9 and FH.
by greglindahl 9y ago
Your numbers are not quite right because you're mixing up the "let's expend the rocket" payload with the "let's not expend the rocket" prices for F9 and FH.
- valuearb 9y agoNope, the F9 expendable price was $63M before it was ever re-usable. They just haven't cut prices from re-usability (yet). The FH price is actually unclear, but it appears it won't have an expendable version. It's got too much payload capacity as re-usable. But again, it doesn't make much difference. SpaceX will definitely put a pound of cargo in orbit for less than 1/10th the cost of the SLS and may as little as 1/20th the cost. In any rational world, you'd rather launch your space vehicle in two parts and mate them in orbit than spend over 10x as much to launch your vehicle already assembled. But in reality, the SLS won't be able to launch interplanetary space vehicles in a single launch. Like Apollo, even their Lunar transports will need some in-space assembly. And if BFR is actually built and fully re-usable, the cost for 300,000+ lb payloads is going to be less than the cost of a Falcon 9.
- greglindahl 9y agoThe current price list for F9 on the SpaceX website is $62mm for up to 5.5 mT to GTO. The expendable performance is 8.3 mT up to GTO. The price for that launch is not given, but it's likely more than the FH $90mm up-to-8.0 mT to GTO launch price. And again, FH doesn't have a price given for > 8.0 mT to GTO. http://www.spacex.com/about/capabilities http://www.spacex.com/about/capabilities. I totally agree that it doesn't make much difference to your argument. However, it wouldn't cost you anything to say the actual numbers published by SpaceX on their website.