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Even with SpaceX's accomplishments in dramatically reducing launch costs, the $10M price point is still insane. The Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy advertised prices

Even with SpaceX's accomplishments in dramatically reducing launch costs, the $10M price point is still insane. The Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy advertised prices are ~$50 million and $90 million per launch. The actual launches and mission management for any more custom launch tend to push those prices to almost double. So to assume that a much larger as yet unproven rocket with launch for $10M seems quite out of range with the others. Even if $10M ends up being the material cost, SpaceX will still be recouping their development cost which is significant. Development of the Falcon 9 was $1.6 billion [0] and I think we can assume Starship will be more than that. [0] https://www.nasa.gov/pdf/586023main_8-3-11_NAFCOM.pdf https://www.nasa.gov/pdf/586023main_8-3-11_NAFCOM.pdf

cecilpl2 5y ago
Falcon9 still throws away the second stage every time. The idea of Starship being $10M is that it's fully reusable, so your marginal cost is only fuel/maintenance/launch.
- dr_orpheus 5y ago
  Okay, according to Elon [0] the cost (to SpaceX) of a refurbished Falcon 9 is $15 million, $10 million of which is the upper stage as you say is not re-usable. So $5M for everything else for a rocket that gets 18k lbs to Low-earth-orbit. If we scale that up to the Starship (220k lbs to LEO) then lets estimate a re-use/refurb cost of $61M. So if a Falcon 9 costs $50M to launch, then 70% of that cost is SpaceX profit/recouping its design cost. Starship is supposed to be even more re-usable so lets assume that they only need 30% of the launch cost for recouping design costs/profit. This would be $87M/launch So my really aggressive estimate is still almost an order of magnitude higher, which is why I am doubtful. Lets also remember that SpaceX got $396M from NASA for the development of Falcon 9 and Dragon [1] [0] https://www.elonx.net/how-much-does-it-cost-to-launch-a-reused-falcon-9-elon-musk-explains-why-reusability-is-worth-it/ https://www.elonx.net/how-much-does-it-cost-to-launch-a-reus... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falcon_9#Conception_and_funding https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falcon_9#Conception_and_fundin...
  - cecilpl2 5y ago
    It's a mistake to assume the marginal cost scales linearly with payload. Fuel will (ish), but many other costs are fixed per launch. I'd argue your estimate is not aggressive. SpaceX continues to claim an eventual marginal cost in the high 7 to low 8 figures per launch. I'm inclined to believe that deep analysis over a back-of-the-comment Fermi estimate.

cecilpl2 5y ago

Falcon9 still throws away the second stage every time. The idea of Starship being $10M is that it's fully reusable, so your marginal cost is only fuel/maintenance/launch.

dr_orpheus 5y ago
Okay, according to Elon [0] the cost (to SpaceX) of a refurbished Falcon 9 is $15 million, $10 million of which is the upper stage as you say is not re-usable. So $5M for everything else for a rocket that gets 18k lbs to Low-earth-orbit. If we scale that up to the Starship (220k lbs to LEO) then lets estimate a re-use/refurb cost of $61M. So if a Falcon 9 costs $50M to launch, then 70% of that cost is SpaceX profit/recouping its design cost. Starship is supposed to be even more re-usable so lets assume that they only need 30% of the launch cost for recouping design costs/profit. This would be $87M/launch So my really aggressive estimate is still almost an order of magnitude higher, which is why I am doubtful. Lets also remember that SpaceX got $396M from NASA for the development of Falcon 9 and Dragon [1] [0] https://www.elonx.net/how-much-does-it-cost-to-launch-a-reused-falcon-9-elon-musk-explains-why-reusability-is-worth-it/ https://www.elonx.net/how-much-does-it-cost-to-launch-a-reus... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falcon_9#Conception_and_funding https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falcon_9#Conception_and_fundin...
- cecilpl2 5y ago
  It's a mistake to assume the marginal cost scales linearly with payload. Fuel will (ish), but many other costs are fixed per launch. I'd argue your estimate is not aggressive. SpaceX continues to claim an eventual marginal cost in the high 7 to low 8 figures per launch. I'm inclined to believe that deep analysis over a back-of-the-comment Fermi estimate.