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Does that scale to a full lunar mission though? Just because it's cheaper to take the bus downtown doesn't say anything about the cost of airfare to another co

• valuearb 9y ago
  Depends on your design. The Saturn V was big enough to launch the entire lunar stack of vehicles in one shot. Anything less than that requires in orbit assembly. IIRC: Saturn V could put 100k pounds in lunar injection. The first SLS will be around 50k, the Falcon Heavy around 40k. Layer versions of the SLS, should we choose to spend more tens of billions developing them, will eventually have Saturn V capabilities. The BFR (as planned) will be the largest capacity rocket ever made. Putting 300k+ in low earth orbit. It’s designed to be refueled in orbit, so essentially it’s lunar/mars injection orbit payload caisvity is 300k+. It’s also designed to be fully reusable, unlike the Falcon series that only reuses main boosters. So it’s claimed to be far cheaper than them, and they are already the most affordable rockets ever made. The SLS is designed to be crushed and melted like a beer can after every launch, which is why it will cost $2B+ per launch.