7 ms·

"a fraction of the cost" is an understatement. By using a 100% reusable vehicle and the cheapest fuel available the aspirational launch cost of starship is $2M

by elif 5y ago

"a fraction of the cost" is an understatement. By using a 100% reusable vehicle and the cheapest fuel available the aspirational launch cost of starship is $2M. Even Apples to Oranges it will be an order of magnitude cheaper than the current paradigm of $35M per Falcon9 launch. When you further consider it has 10x the payload capacity, this experiment gets really exciting.

barbegal 5y ago
I don't understand how it can be an order of magnitude cheaper. There are more rocket engines to maintain, far more fuel, a more expensive launch structure and generally more expense in all the ground operations. In a world where this can be launched for $2M, Falcon 9 can be launched for less than $1M.
- crawshaw 5y ago
  A falcon 9 launch expends the upper stage. Building the upper stage is now most of the cost of its launch.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- slownews45 5y ago
  Fairing recovery on Felcon 9 is not perfect. Rumor was that alone was something like $5M per launch flushed.
- simonh 5y ago
  They expect each vehicle to cost $200m and to fly them 100 times each. Hence $2m per launch. Falcon 9 costs a lot more than that because the upper stage is expended each time and that costs mid single-digit millions, and the first stages may not last much beyond a few dozen launches without significant re-engineering which would also make them heavier.
  - throwaway316943 5y ago
    Boy I hope they park them in orbit on the last launch and use them to build space habitats.
    - rbanffy 5y ago
      There was a plan to do that with shuttle tanks. If we used them, the ISS could have a humongous ring of habitable former tanks.
  - Robotbeat 5y ago
    Actually, Elon once told me that they might be able to build Starship launch vehicles for less than Falcon 9 (say about $80 million new): https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1094793664809689089?s=20 https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1094793664809689089?s=20 100 reuses is not the limit either. The first stage in particular may be made for a lot more.
- SEJeff 5y ago
  The Falcon 9 can not be launched for less than $1M. Falcon 9 does not reuse the second stage. Elon has said that the second stage is approximately 20% of the cost of a Falcon 9 launch. A Falcon 9 needs to have some work done between each launch. Some of the Falcon 9 parts are not actually reusable (crush cores for the landing legs as an example). This is why they can not ever simply fill up a landed Falcon 9 booster, put a new second stage on it, and launch it again. The Starship / Superheavy combo is designed to be able to literally just refuel and go. The Falcon 9 booster is mostly made of aluminum, which is up to 60% more expensive than stainless steel. The Starship / Superheavy are stainless steel. Methane (Starship fuel) is massively cheaper than Kerosene (Falcon 9 fuel). Methane also has a much higher specific impulse, which means you can use less of it to get the same increase in velocity. Methane can be stored in liquid form in same temperature as oxygen, which means less insulation the two propellant tanks. Inversely, Kerosene will freeze at the temperatures required to get oxygen into liquid form. Basically, nothing you said is accurate.
  - oses 5y ago
    The combination of Methane and the full flow staged combustion cycle also means significantly reduced coking in the engine, so it drastically prolongs the time between engine refurbishments.
    - ordu 5y ago
      Do you know how a reduced coking works? I've read about the raptor engine[1] and it explains how fuel rich hot mixture leads to coking, it explains how USA solved this problem before (by using hydrogen as a fuel), but how Musk managed to solve it? Partially burned methane should produce free carbon atoms, shouldn't it? Doesn't it raise a coking problem? [1] https://everydayastronaut.com/raptor-engine/ https://everydayastronaut.com/raptor-engine/
      - jjk166 5y ago
        In a conventional hydrocarbon fueled engine, you're using a fuel with hydrocarbon chains at approximately room temperature to cool the engine. With only a little heat addition, you get up to a temperature where these chains can shed hydrogens and convert their C-C-H bonds to C=C double bonds. These bonds in turn allow hydrocarbon chains to join together into larger molecules that can coagulate and stick to the walls. Methane on the other hand is starting out at a much lower temperature, and it's very difficult to get methane molecules to react with each other to form large molecules as you're not starting with any single C-C bonds. Isolated free carbon atoms (soot) aren't much of a problem.
- thinkcontext 5y ago
  The key to the price is that Musk is projecting it will be able to be reused many more times than Falcon 9, as well as a reusable 2nd stage.
- nickik 5y ago
  Rocket engines shouldn't be that cheap to maintain, they are designed to be very reusable, unlike Merlin they were designed for the beginning to be reusable. The whole reason for the full-flow staged cycle is to have much more reasonable internal temperatures. Methane as well was picked partially because its far more clean burning. There is no reason rocket engines couldn't be as reliable a jet engines. > far more fuel RP1 is very expensive. Methane is much cheaper, and they can even produce it local. Ox is very cheap and is basically gone turn into the cost of electricity and they are using local solar to make it. Helium is also a very expensive part of the Falcon 9. Starship avoids the use of helium. Additionally the Falcon 9 used TEE-TAB that is also expensive. And it used nitrogen as well, that not expensive but just one more thing to worry about. Falcon 9 has 6 different different consumables, Starship has 2. > generally more expense in all the ground operations This is wrong. The Falcon needed to have drone ships operating and tug boats for them as well, to catch the fairing they have another 1-2 boats out there to collect the fairing. Then the stages need to be brought into port, transported back to the launch site and so on. The fairing have to be refurbished as well. In additional Starship has multiple design upgrades that make it actually easier. Unlike Falcon 9 Upper stage, the Starship will be fueled from below, meaning there is no secondary fuel infrastructure for the upper stage. Not requiring the fueling of the consumables above also makes it much easier. Plus they were able to apply everything they learned from Falcon 9 and ground operations to this new launch vehicle and launch site. > In a world where this can be launched for $2M, Falcon 9 can be launched for less than $1M. Falcon 9 can not do that. First of all, you need to build an upper stage that cost you 5-10M. You can't build that Upper stage fast enough to reach the required flight rate. Falcon 9 is also more difficult to launch and prep for launch. It wasn't designed to be fully reusable and still need more checks and refurbishments. Now $2M is extreme, even if it is $10M or $20M that only really matters for stuff like Mars. If you can launch it anywhere under $100M its revolutionary vehicle for space flight.
api 5y ago
"They're about to pass the great filter... fire the relativistic impactors!" Seriously though, this is game changing at even 100X that number or $200M per launch. Even if they don't get close to the aspirational price it's going to make a ton of stuff possible in space that was unaffordable before.
- rbanffy 5y ago
  It’s already too late for anyone more than 200 ly away. They’re better getting used to us.
themgt 5y ago
It's not even just that it's cheaper to launch, but the full reusability and planned ability to refuel in orbit really make it a game-changer. A fully fueled Starship in LEO can take a huge payload to the Moon, Mars, etc and ideally land itself, potentially refuel in-situ and get back to Earth. They can make minimally-customized modifications for tanker Starship / Lunar Starship / Mars Starship / etc and it's like a space swiss-army knife. Just look at the National Team / Dynetics HLS proposals with a bunch of expensive, novel custom hardware vs. Space X proposal which was "basically just Starship". It could obviate a huge amount of resources being poured into one-off disposable space hardware and let us instead focus on actually doing stuff in space.
- engineer_22 5y ago
  Where can I see the HLS proposal?
  - mikepurvis 5y ago
    WP references are never a bad place to start: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dynetics_HLS#References https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dynetics_HLS#References
    - engineer_22 5y ago
      It's not in there
  - nickik 5y ago
    This video goes into a lot of detail: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WSg5UfFM7NY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WSg5UfFM7NY
    - engineer_22 5y ago
      Thanks
_greim_ 5y ago
Dare I ask how much the space shuttle cost to launch? Another order of magnitude higher? Ha ha.
- acover 5y ago
  500 - 1500 million https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Shuttle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Shuttle
- dredmorbius 5y ago
  About $1.2 billion per launch. https://www.space.com/11358-nasa-space-shuttle-program-cost-30-years.html https://www.space.com/11358-nasa-space-shuttle-program-cost-... There's some room for argument, but on the order of 1,000x the stated SpaceX Super Heavy booster. Even if that turns out to be vastly optimistic (not ... unheard of in rocket surgery), it's all but certain that costs will be 100x lower than the Shuttle. Even a 10x factor would be utterly transformational. I'm not an uncriticle Musk fan, but he's repeatedly delivered on promises I thought were tots redic initially (long-range EVs, reusable boosters, powered return boosters). He's had a few missed deliveries (hyperloop and Boring Co. both seem infeasible, and Mars colonisation still strikes me as a very long shot within 50 years), but we're indisputably closer to those possibilities than before he came on the scene. Credit to engineering teams, there's also something to be said for vision and force of will.
  - thehappypm 5y ago
    The government is at its most efficient when its main purpose cutting checks. DARPA, Operation Warp Speed, Social Security, countless grants to scientists. Try to have the government actually achieve things directly and you get the Space Shuttle.
    - dingaling 5y ago
      > Try to have the government actually achieve things directly and you get the Space Shuttle. I don't think that's entirely fair. The Orbiter ( developed by Rockwell, not NASA or .gov ) was the result of two decades of hypersonic aerodynamics research combined with the state of materials art at the time. The solid boosters were ahead of the technology curve. The overall package was compromised by USAF / .mil requirements but otherwise was an advanced product for its time.
GuB-42 5y ago
> the aspirational launch cost So, it means nothing. The Space Shuttle also was supposed to be cheap and almost completely reusable, it turned out to be one of the most expensive launchers. BFR is not the space shuttle, but I will not make any speculation before I can actually order a launch. Elon Musk is known for overpromising. The tech is awesome, and SpaceX realizations speak for themselves, but I consider anything Elon Musk says "not even wrong". I mean, I love SpaceX, and I follow BFR closely, but I think it would be better without the sensationalism.

by elif 5y ago

barbegal 5y ago

I don't understand how it can be an order of magnitude cheaper. There are more rocket engines to maintain, far more fuel, a more expensive launch structure and generally more expense in all the ground operations. In a world where this can be launched for $2M, Falcon 9 can be launched for less than $1M.

crawshaw 5y ago
A falcon 9 launch expends the upper stage. Building the upper stage is now most of the cost of its launch.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
slownews45 5y ago
Fairing recovery on Felcon 9 is not perfect. Rumor was that alone was something like $5M per launch flushed.
simonh 5y ago
They expect each vehicle to cost $200m and to fly them 100 times each. Hence $2m per launch. Falcon 9 costs a lot more than that because the upper stage is expended each time and that costs mid single-digit millions, and the first stages may not last much beyond a few dozen launches without significant re-engineering which would also make them heavier.
- throwaway316943 5y ago
  Boy I hope they park them in orbit on the last launch and use them to build space habitats.
  - rbanffy 5y ago
    There was a plan to do that with shuttle tanks. If we used them, the ISS could have a humongous ring of habitable former tanks.
- Robotbeat 5y ago
  Actually, Elon once told me that they might be able to build Starship launch vehicles for less than Falcon 9 (say about $80 million new): https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1094793664809689089?s=20 https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1094793664809689089?s=20 100 reuses is not the limit either. The first stage in particular may be made for a lot more.
SEJeff 5y ago
The Falcon 9 can not be launched for less than $1M. Falcon 9 does not reuse the second stage. Elon has said that the second stage is approximately 20% of the cost of a Falcon 9 launch. A Falcon 9 needs to have some work done between each launch. Some of the Falcon 9 parts are not actually reusable (crush cores for the landing legs as an example). This is why they can not ever simply fill up a landed Falcon 9 booster, put a new second stage on it, and launch it again. The Starship / Superheavy combo is designed to be able to literally just refuel and go. The Falcon 9 booster is mostly made of aluminum, which is up to 60% more expensive than stainless steel. The Starship / Superheavy are stainless steel. Methane (Starship fuel) is massively cheaper than Kerosene (Falcon 9 fuel). Methane also has a much higher specific impulse, which means you can use less of it to get the same increase in velocity. Methane can be stored in liquid form in same temperature as oxygen, which means less insulation the two propellant tanks. Inversely, Kerosene will freeze at the temperatures required to get oxygen into liquid form. Basically, nothing you said is accurate.
- oses 5y ago
  The combination of Methane and the full flow staged combustion cycle also means significantly reduced coking in the engine, so it drastically prolongs the time between engine refurbishments.
  - ordu 5y ago
    Do you know how a reduced coking works? I've read about the raptor engine[1] and it explains how fuel rich hot mixture leads to coking, it explains how USA solved this problem before (by using hydrogen as a fuel), but how Musk managed to solve it? Partially burned methane should produce free carbon atoms, shouldn't it? Doesn't it raise a coking problem? [1] https://everydayastronaut.com/raptor-engine/ https://everydayastronaut.com/raptor-engine/
    - jjk166 5y ago
      In a conventional hydrocarbon fueled engine, you're using a fuel with hydrocarbon chains at approximately room temperature to cool the engine. With only a little heat addition, you get up to a temperature where these chains can shed hydrogens and convert their C-C-H bonds to C=C double bonds. These bonds in turn allow hydrocarbon chains to join together into larger molecules that can coagulate and stick to the walls. Methane on the other hand is starting out at a much lower temperature, and it's very difficult to get methane molecules to react with each other to form large molecules as you're not starting with any single C-C bonds. Isolated free carbon atoms (soot) aren't much of a problem.
thinkcontext 5y ago
The key to the price is that Musk is projecting it will be able to be reused many more times than Falcon 9, as well as a reusable 2nd stage.
nickik 5y ago
Rocket engines shouldn't be that cheap to maintain, they are designed to be very reusable, unlike Merlin they were designed for the beginning to be reusable. The whole reason for the full-flow staged cycle is to have much more reasonable internal temperatures. Methane as well was picked partially because its far more clean burning. There is no reason rocket engines couldn't be as reliable a jet engines. > far more fuel RP1 is very expensive. Methane is much cheaper, and they can even produce it local. Ox is very cheap and is basically gone turn into the cost of electricity and they are using local solar to make it. Helium is also a very expensive part of the Falcon 9. Starship avoids the use of helium. Additionally the Falcon 9 used TEE-TAB that is also expensive. And it used nitrogen as well, that not expensive but just one more thing to worry about. Falcon 9 has 6 different different consumables, Starship has 2. > generally more expense in all the ground operations This is wrong. The Falcon needed to have drone ships operating and tug boats for them as well, to catch the fairing they have another 1-2 boats out there to collect the fairing. Then the stages need to be brought into port, transported back to the launch site and so on. The fairing have to be refurbished as well. In additional Starship has multiple design upgrades that make it actually easier. Unlike Falcon 9 Upper stage, the Starship will be fueled from below, meaning there is no secondary fuel infrastructure for the upper stage. Not requiring the fueling of the consumables above also makes it much easier. Plus they were able to apply everything they learned from Falcon 9 and ground operations to this new launch vehicle and launch site. > In a world where this can be launched for $2M, Falcon 9 can be launched for less than $1M. Falcon 9 can not do that. First of all, you need to build an upper stage that cost you 5-10M. You can't build that Upper stage fast enough to reach the required flight rate. Falcon 9 is also more difficult to launch and prep for launch. It wasn't designed to be fully reusable and still need more checks and refurbishments. Now $2M is extreme, even if it is $10M or $20M that only really matters for stuff like Mars. If you can launch it anywhere under $100M its revolutionary vehicle for space flight.

api 5y ago

"They're about to pass the great filter... fire the relativistic impactors!" Seriously though, this is game changing at even 100X that number or $200M per launch. Even if they don't get close to the aspirational price it's going to make a ton of stuff possible in space that was unaffordable before.

rbanffy 5y ago
It’s already too late for anyone more than 200 ly away. They’re better getting used to us.

themgt 5y ago

It's not even just that it's cheaper to launch, but the full reusability and planned ability to refuel in orbit really make it a game-changer. A fully fueled Starship in LEO can take a huge payload to the Moon, Mars, etc and ideally land itself, potentially refuel in-situ and get back to Earth. They can make minimally-customized modifications for tanker Starship / Lunar Starship / Mars Starship / etc and it's like a space swiss-army knife. Just look at the National Team / Dynetics HLS proposals with a bunch of expensive, novel custom hardware vs. Space X proposal which was "basically just Starship". It could obviate a huge amount of resources being poured into one-off disposable space hardware and let us instead focus on actually doing stuff in space.

engineer_22 5y ago
Where can I see the HLS proposal?
- mikepurvis 5y ago
  WP references are never a bad place to start: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dynetics_HLS#References https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dynetics_HLS#References
  - engineer_22 5y ago
    It's not in there
- nickik 5y ago
  This video goes into a lot of detail: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WSg5UfFM7NY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WSg5UfFM7NY
  - engineer_22 5y ago
    Thanks

_greim_ 5y ago

Dare I ask how much the space shuttle cost to launch? Another order of magnitude higher? Ha ha.

acover 5y ago
500 - 1500 million https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Shuttle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Shuttle
dredmorbius 5y ago
About $1.2 billion per launch. https://www.space.com/11358-nasa-space-shuttle-program-cost-30-years.html https://www.space.com/11358-nasa-space-shuttle-program-cost-... There's some room for argument, but on the order of 1,000x the stated SpaceX Super Heavy booster. Even if that turns out to be vastly optimistic (not ... unheard of in rocket surgery), it's all but certain that costs will be 100x lower than the Shuttle. Even a 10x factor would be utterly transformational. I'm not an uncriticle Musk fan, but he's repeatedly delivered on promises I thought were tots redic initially (long-range EVs, reusable boosters, powered return boosters). He's had a few missed deliveries (hyperloop and Boring Co. both seem infeasible, and Mars colonisation still strikes me as a very long shot within 50 years), but we're indisputably closer to those possibilities than before he came on the scene. Credit to engineering teams, there's also something to be said for vision and force of will.
- thehappypm 5y ago
  The government is at its most efficient when its main purpose cutting checks. DARPA, Operation Warp Speed, Social Security, countless grants to scientists. Try to have the government actually achieve things directly and you get the Space Shuttle.
  - dingaling 5y ago
    > Try to have the government actually achieve things directly and you get the Space Shuttle. I don't think that's entirely fair. The Orbiter ( developed by Rockwell, not NASA or .gov ) was the result of two decades of hypersonic aerodynamics research combined with the state of materials art at the time. The solid boosters were ahead of the technology curve. The overall package was compromised by USAF / .mil requirements but otherwise was an advanced product for its time.

GuB-42 5y ago

> the aspirational launch cost So, it means nothing. The Space Shuttle also was supposed to be cheap and almost completely reusable, it turned out to be one of the most expensive launchers. BFR is not the space shuttle, but I will not make any speculation before I can actually order a launch. Elon Musk is known for overpromising. The tech is awesome, and SpaceX realizations speak for themselves, but I consider anything Elon Musk says "not even wrong". I mean, I love SpaceX, and I follow BFR closely, but I think it would be better without the sensationalism.