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The $88K per KG price seems kind of high; perhaps that's the cost of delivering a small package to ISS and back? If a Falcon 9 can launch 22,800 kilograms (acc
by elihu 9y ago
The $88K per KG price seems kind of high; perhaps that's the cost of delivering a small package to ISS and back?
If a Falcon 9 can launch 22,800 kilograms (according to Wikipedia) for about 90 million dollars (I think that was about the price of a launch if I remember correctly), then that comes out to ~$3948 per kilogram. There would be additional costs of delivering the payload exactly where it's supposed to go and dropping the finished fiber back to Earth, but in volume the price per KG seems like it could be a lot less than the quoted price (if there's a market for ZBLAN that's big enough to justify).
- choeger 9y agoActually a launch to LEO costs less than 60Million $. But you need a reentry vehicle as well. If you want to start tomorrow, your only choice would be a dragon spacecraft. It can bring back 3t of cargo. Depending on the price tag of the dragon and its refurbishment (I would assume up to 40 million), I'd calculate up to 33k$ per kg at today's market.
- zeristor 9y agoThe big question is how demand responds to supply, and price. In extremis this sort issues blinds people to asteroid mining; there’s only so much demand at a price. This is a great toe hold though, I doubt there’ll be enough demand to fund and run an orbital industrial facility, but it could play a part in that. If a portion of all this surplus capital that is sloshing around the world could be profitably directed to space then momentum will build.