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I find that utterly mad why would you combine multiple small launches into a big one? The tyranny of rocket equation suggests to me that you will have to burn
by freemint 5y ago
I find that utterly mad why would you combine multiple small launches into a big one?
The tyranny of rocket equation suggests to me that you will have to burn a lot more to lift a lot more things to burn for the payloads that would have been in a different rocket.
I would like to be shown the math that it actually takes less fuel with a bigger rocket.
- kortex 5y agoEconomies of scale at every stage of the game. Fuel is basically the cheapest part of a launch. Last I checked, the cost of maintaining infrastructure was on roughly the same order as the fuel per launch. More launches per site drives the cost-per down. Reusability is a spectrum. Falcon requires a nontrivial amount of inspection and refurb between launches, while Starship is aiming for jetliner levels of prep. Musk is also aiming to drive down the capex costs as well. There's less complexity for unmanned cargo hoist missions. I think the target for Starship is low tens of millions USD, basically cheaper than Falcon Heavy, but more reusable, with more capacity. I think the only thing that's not cheaper, is liquid methane is a bit more expensive per kJ. They are roughly the same price per kg, with RP-1 being more energy dense. But then again, I could see SpaceX vertically integrating and driving that cost down too.