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I got curious how it compares to Saturn V. Low Earth Orbit Payload: Falcon Heavy: 140,000lb, Saturn V: 260,000lb Launch cost: Falcon Heavy: ~$140M, Saturn V:

• api 9y ago
  With sufficient funds you can often buy your way into the future. Saturn was awesome but nowhere near economically sustainable.
  • nickik 9y ago
    False. Losing the Saturn and trying the Shuttle instead was a catastrophic failure. Per flight the Shuttle was almost as expensive with way less capability. Giving up the capabilities of the Saturn V hurt and cost every other project there after. Look at the Space Station. It was way way more expensive because it had to be assembled in lots of flights. The same goes for some of the deep space probs and space telescopes, they had to be designed often limited by small rockets. Giving up the Saturn V was the biggest mistake the US Space program ever made. We are still working under that mistake and now have 3 groups trying to finally achieve something like it again, SLS, BFR, New Armstrong.
    • iamcreasy 9y ago
      I don't think you are correct. Space Shuttle came about because Saturn was not economically sustainable. NASA was getting those massive funds from the Gov for the Moon mission, and after the goal was achieved those funds stopped flowing, and NASA had no way to maintain those expensive rockets. So NASA came up with a reusable spacecraft design, the Space Shuttle. But DoD wanted the shuttle to have a certain payload capacity/features for their use cases and that forced NASA to change their original design, which also made it a maintenance nightmare. In hindsight, Space Shuttle would have achieved its mission of being a cheap reusable spacecraft, if NASA were able to use its original design.
      • nickik 9y ago
        Not really, they could have gone forward with either program with the budget they had. They would have to do some cuts, but it was not completly unviable. > In hindsight, Space Shuttle would have achieved its mission of being a cheap reusable spacecraft, if NASA were able to use its original design. There are lots of ifs and buts and I blaming everything on the DoD and not make NASA responsable for anything is false narrative. NASA made a lot of mistakes to even get to that point.
        • iamcreasy 9y ago
          > Not really, they could have gone forward with either program with the budget they had The goal of Space Shuttle was to reduce the cost of space flight.
• api_or_ipa 9y ago
  It blows my mind that SpaceX's BFR project plans to send more payload in reusable mode than Saturn V did in full expendable mode (150,000 kg vs 140,000 kg).
  • nickik 9y ago
    And for less money per launch then the F9.
  • ajnin 9y ago
    This capacity is only for a fully expendable vehicle (See http://www.spacex.com/about/capabilities http://www.spacex.com/about/capabilities). Reusable payload is subtantially less, although not specified on their website. Also it's 140000 lbs, or 63800kg.
    • phyller 9y ago
      The poster you are replying to was talking about the BFR not the Falcon Heavy
• jcims 9y ago
  The Saturn could send an M1 Abrams into space with 50 tons to spare for fuel and ammo.