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> 500,000 metric tons. Which would take around 25,000 Falcon Heavy launches to get to the moon Starship can apparently take 100t to the moon which would be 500
by nyokodo 4y ago
> 500,000 metric tons. Which would take around 25,000 Falcon Heavy launches to get to the moon
Starship can apparently take 100t to the moon which would be 5000 launches. Elon math has cost per launch eventually reaching $2m which would mean $10b to get the cables to the moon. If terminally optimistic Elon math is roughly correct that puts the project into merely unlikely territory rather than impossible.
- Teever 4y agoeven if Elon math is off by a factor of ten thats still $100 billion which IIRC is less than the cost of the ISS without even accounting for inflation.
- sneak 4y agoStarship is planned to take 100T to LEO. I think getting to the moon (and landing softly on it) would reduce that figure substantially (or increase the cost/time due to LEO refueling prior to translunar injection).
- nyokodo 4y ago> Starship is planned to take 100T to LEO The SpaceX website says “100+ t” to LEO. So 100t is a lower bound? Who knows? [1] However: “Starship can land 100 tons on the lunar surface," said Aarti Matthews, Starship Human Landing System program manager for SpaceX.” [2] Aarti may mean “with refueling in LEO” so that would require additional launches without an established orbital refueling station. So to fix my math would require knowing the cost of tanker launches which I’m not going to attempt to do. 1. https://www.spacex.com/vehicles/starship/ https://www.spacex.com/vehicles/starship/ 2. https://arstechnica.com/science/2022/05/spacex-engineer-says-nasa-should-plan-for-starships-significant-capability/ https://arstechnica.com/science/2022/05/spacex-engineer-says...