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I LOLd but then had to do the math. Turns out that the dry weight of a SpaceX Merlin engine, in gold, costs almost exactly the same as a production RS-25. Cur
by Diederich 5y ago
I LOLd but then had to do the math. Turns out that the dry weight of a SpaceX Merlin engine, in gold, costs almost exactly the same as a production RS-25.
Current spot price of gold is $1800/oz. Merlin dry weight is 1380 pounds. 1380 pounds of gold is right at 40 million dollars.
Per https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RS-25#Space_Shuttle_program https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RS-25#Space_Shuttle_program :
"A total of 46 reusable RS-25 engines, each costing around US$40 million, were flown during the Space Shuttle program"
Beautiful.
- jhgb 5y agoThey cost much more than $40M these days.
- mlindner 5y agoThose numbers are out of date now, they recently restarted production and it turns out each engine is about $150M now for the new production run for the SLS. (Which about the cost of a full expendable Falcon Heavy rocket launch along with all 27 of its Merlin engines.)
- mr_toad 5y agoThat’s what happens when you decide on a product and then ask how much it costs.