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I used to be confused by SpaceX marketing. Why do they talk about 90%+ cost reduction per KG to LEO? Maybe the general public will fall for it, but the general

I used to be confused by SpaceX marketing. Why do they talk about 90%+ cost reduction per KG to LEO? Maybe the general public will fall for it, but the general public doesn't often launch satellites. The actual experts will just laugh them out of the room. There's no way their marketing can fool anyone who is in a position to give them money. Apparently I was mistaken. There are people working at the JPL who seriously believe we'll be able to send payloads to the Martian surface using a human-rated vehicle and bring it back to Earth for $1,000/kg. There are people working for NASA who actually believe we will be able to launch to LEO for $55/kg. What the Hell? I guess it's no wonder NASA is doing so badly if these are the sorts of people they're hiring.

dweekly 5y ago
For those of us not expert in the commercial space industry, it might be more helpful to point out some reasoning outlining the impossibility of these claims or pointing to resources that do instead of simply scoffing at them. An eyeroll is not a very educating comment (especially coming from a relatively new account with low karma and no clear expert credentials on this matter presented, though I am assuming you have them) and this is an area I think many of us on HN would like to learn more about as well as improve our critical thinking on such matters. We'd love to hear more about why you think what you think.
- dtparr 5y ago
  Agreed, I'm curious if the scoffing was at the claim of 100 metric tons to LEO or the pricing for such a launch ($55/kg would mean a $5.5M/launch cost). I'm assuming the latter since the Saturn V could put 140 metric tons in LEO, but the F9 costs roughly an order of magnitude more.
  - afgasgbui 5y ago
    The latter, of course. Launch prices have been fairly consistent for about 50 years. Promising a sudden 20x cost reduction over SpaceX's already exaggerated figures without any real innovation is ludicrous.
    - m4rtink 5y ago
      Yeah, it's not like you could say double the number of transistors on an IC every two years - those things are tiny. Totally impossible.
    - JumpCrisscross 5y ago
      > Launch prices have been fairly consistent for about 50 years Is the claim that Falcon 9 and Heavy prices, total and per kilo, are comparable to any platform from before 2010?
      - afgasgbui 5y ago
        Yup! The Saturn V cost $5k per kg to LEO. Best case, SpaceX has a ~2x savings over the tech we had in the 1960s. The Soyuz 2.1a is competitively priced and it's still launching, though we can't really compare since we only know the price and not the actual cost of the launch. The tradeoffs SpaceX has made have some real cost savings. Problem is that it's not anywhere even remotely close to what they want you to believe it is.
        JumpCrisscross 5y ago
        > Saturn V cost $5k per kg to LEO. Best case, SpaceX has a ~2x savings over the tech we had in the 1960s NASA begs to disagree, showing Falcon 9 at $2,720 per kg and Falcon Heavy at $1,400 per kg [1]. This is the cheapest launch platform on the planet, apart from, perhaps, the PSLV [2]. And those are their prices, not costs. The runners up are Proton, Long March 3B and Ariane 5G at $4,320; $4,412; and $9,167 per kg respectively [3]. There simply isn't competitive pressure to push SpaceX's prices down. Particularly in heavy. Ignoring the tremendous leaps we've made in launch economics over the past two decades, largely as a result of SpaceX, is naïvely dismissive. Yes, they talk a bigger game than they bring. But they're still bringing some big fucking game. [1] https://ntrs.nasa.gov/citations/20200001093 https://ntrs.nasa.gov/citations/20200001093 [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polar_Satellite_Launch_Vehicle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polar_Satellite_Launch_Vehicle [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_launch_market_competition#cite_note-Trends-23 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_launch_market_competitio...
marcus_holmes 5y ago
So far I've seen them achieve everything they set out to achieve. But I'm not an expert, or even a knowledgeable amateur, in this area. What's the reasoning behind your scepticism? More information would be good, it's an interesting subject.
- afgasgbui 5y ago
  >So far I've seen them achieve everything they set out to achieve. They built competitive rockets. That's a big deal and I don't wish to diminish that. They promised magic 99% cost savings and are nowhere close.
  - marcus_holmes 5y ago
    I googled. It seems they're at a 40% reduction as of Oct 2020 [0] for Falcon launches of government satellites, and could go lower but there's politics involved - as always in government-funded anything. Is that correct? If so, then that's not "nowhere close", it's another order of magnitude away, for sure, but the high-volume approach of Spaceship could do that? Or not? [0] https://www.fool.com/investing/2020/10/05/how-much-cheaper-are-spacex-reusable-rockets-now-w/ https://www.fool.com/investing/2020/10/05/how-much-cheaper-a...
  - jcims 5y ago
    Do we know their costs though? Even if they did achieve 99%, whats the incentive to reduce prices that far while the volume is this low?
  - Geee 5y ago
    They're getting closer. If they achieve rapid reusability with Super Heavy Starship then it'll be close to 99% reduction in costs.
  - cromwellian 5y ago
    Market competition sets prices. Marginal cost = price only when you have competitive. Otherwise, you cannot use the advertised mission prices to determine their costs. They could invent a rocket that does $500/kg to LEO and it wouldn't matter one iota to their actual costs if 1) demand doesn't go up and 2) competition doesn't exist.
a1369209993 5y ago
> There are people working for NASA who actually believe we will be able to launch to LEO for $55/kg. I mean, that works fine if you have something like a space elevator: $ units # assuming 10cent/kWh[0] You have: 300 km gravity * (.1$/kWh) Definition: 0.081722083 US$ / kg You have: sqrt(G earthmass/earthradius) Definition: 7911.1468 m / s You have: (9km/s)^2 * (.1$/kWh) Definition: 2.25 US$ / kg You have: ((9km/s)^2+300 km gravity) * (.1$/kWh) Definition: 2.3317221 US$ / kg So lifting stuff to LEO should cost ~2.50$/kg in energy at current retail prices. Adding (merely) a factor of twenty in overhead to actually deliver that energy is significantly more iffy, though. 0: https://www.statista.com/statistics/183700/us-average-retail-electricity-price-since-1990/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/183700/us-average-retail...
elihu 5y ago
SpaceX doesn't have to hit those price targets in order to be successful, they just have to have the cheapest per-rocket costs versus their competitors. They also don't have to pass all those costs savings to their customers: they can charge exorbitant prices and people will still happily pay if it's the best deal around. I'm sure many people at NASA and JPL are aware that SpaceX has some pretty good fallback positions if their marketing materials turn out to be inaccurate predictions of the future and that their bargaining position against SpaceX is weak up until they have multiple vendors and competitive bidding.

dweekly 5y ago

For those of us not expert in the commercial space industry, it might be more helpful to point out some reasoning outlining the impossibility of these claims or pointing to resources that do instead of simply scoffing at them. An eyeroll is not a very educating comment (especially coming from a relatively new account with low karma and no clear expert credentials on this matter presented, though I am assuming you have them) and this is an area I think many of us on HN would like to learn more about as well as improve our critical thinking on such matters. We'd love to hear more about why you think what you think.

dtparr 5y ago
Agreed, I'm curious if the scoffing was at the claim of 100 metric tons to LEO or the pricing for such a launch ($55/kg would mean a $5.5M/launch cost). I'm assuming the latter since the Saturn V could put 140 metric tons in LEO, but the F9 costs roughly an order of magnitude more.
- afgasgbui 5y ago
  The latter, of course. Launch prices have been fairly consistent for about 50 years. Promising a sudden 20x cost reduction over SpaceX's already exaggerated figures without any real innovation is ludicrous.
  - m4rtink 5y ago
    Yeah, it's not like you could say double the number of transistors on an IC every two years - those things are tiny. Totally impossible.
  - JumpCrisscross 5y ago
    > Launch prices have been fairly consistent for about 50 years Is the claim that Falcon 9 and Heavy prices, total and per kilo, are comparable to any platform from before 2010?
    - afgasgbui 5y ago
      Yup! The Saturn V cost $5k per kg to LEO. Best case, SpaceX has a ~2x savings over the tech we had in the 1960s. The Soyuz 2.1a is competitively priced and it's still launching, though we can't really compare since we only know the price and not the actual cost of the launch. The tradeoffs SpaceX has made have some real cost savings. Problem is that it's not anywhere even remotely close to what they want you to believe it is.
      - JumpCrisscross 5y ago
        > Saturn V cost $5k per kg to LEO. Best case, SpaceX has a ~2x savings over the tech we had in the 1960s NASA begs to disagree, showing Falcon 9 at $2,720 per kg and Falcon Heavy at $1,400 per kg [1]. This is the cheapest launch platform on the planet, apart from, perhaps, the PSLV [2]. And those are their prices, not costs. The runners up are Proton, Long March 3B and Ariane 5G at $4,320; $4,412; and $9,167 per kg respectively [3]. There simply isn't competitive pressure to push SpaceX's prices down. Particularly in heavy. Ignoring the tremendous leaps we've made in launch economics over the past two decades, largely as a result of SpaceX, is naïvely dismissive. Yes, they talk a bigger game than they bring. But they're still bringing some big fucking game. [1] https://ntrs.nasa.gov/citations/20200001093 https://ntrs.nasa.gov/citations/20200001093 [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polar_Satellite_Launch_Vehicle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polar_Satellite_Launch_Vehicle [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_launch_market_competition#cite_note-Trends-23 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_launch_market_competitio...

marcus_holmes 5y ago

So far I've seen them achieve everything they set out to achieve. But I'm not an expert, or even a knowledgeable amateur, in this area. What's the reasoning behind your scepticism? More information would be good, it's an interesting subject.

afgasgbui 5y ago
>So far I've seen them achieve everything they set out to achieve. They built competitive rockets. That's a big deal and I don't wish to diminish that. They promised magic 99% cost savings and are nowhere close.
- marcus_holmes 5y ago
  I googled. It seems they're at a 40% reduction as of Oct 2020 [0] for Falcon launches of government satellites, and could go lower but there's politics involved - as always in government-funded anything. Is that correct? If so, then that's not "nowhere close", it's another order of magnitude away, for sure, but the high-volume approach of Spaceship could do that? Or not? [0] https://www.fool.com/investing/2020/10/05/how-much-cheaper-are-spacex-reusable-rockets-now-w/ https://www.fool.com/investing/2020/10/05/how-much-cheaper-a...
- jcims 5y ago
  Do we know their costs though? Even if they did achieve 99%, whats the incentive to reduce prices that far while the volume is this low?
- Geee 5y ago
  They're getting closer. If they achieve rapid reusability with Super Heavy Starship then it'll be close to 99% reduction in costs.
- cromwellian 5y ago
  Market competition sets prices. Marginal cost = price only when you have competitive. Otherwise, you cannot use the advertised mission prices to determine their costs. They could invent a rocket that does $500/kg to LEO and it wouldn't matter one iota to their actual costs if 1) demand doesn't go up and 2) competition doesn't exist.

a1369209993 5y ago

> There are people working for NASA who actually believe we will be able to launch to LEO for $55/kg. I mean, that works fine if you have something like a space elevator: $ units # assuming 10cent/kWh[0] You have: 300 km gravity * (.1$/kWh) Definition: 0.081722083 US$ / kg You have: sqrt(G earthmass/earthradius) Definition: 7911.1468 m / s You have: (9km/s)^2 * (.1$/kWh) Definition: 2.25 US$ / kg You have: ((9km/s)^2+300 km gravity) * (.1$/kWh) Definition: 2.3317221 US$ / kg So lifting stuff to LEO should cost ~2.50$/kg in energy at current retail prices. Adding (merely) a factor of twenty in overhead to actually deliver that energy is significantly more iffy, though. 0: https://www.statista.com/statistics/183700/us-average-retail-electricity-price-since-1990/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/183700/us-average-retail...

elihu 5y ago

SpaceX doesn't have to hit those price targets in order to be successful, they just have to have the cheapest per-rocket costs versus their competitors. They also don't have to pass all those costs savings to their customers: they can charge exorbitant prices and people will still happily pay if it's the best deal around. I'm sure many people at NASA and JPL are aware that SpaceX has some pretty good fallback positions if their marketing materials turn out to be inaccurate predictions of the future and that their bargaining position against SpaceX is weak up until they have multiple vendors and competitive bidding.