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How much do you think starship launches will cost? Hint, it's billions
by sashahrzg 4y ago
How much do you think starship launches will cost? Hint, it's billions
- Invictus0 4y agoLOL! More than a billion dollars to refill a rocket with fuel? You are bugging.
- sashahrzg 4y agoThat's not how a launch cost is calculated. The cost of the rocket's construction is included in every launch, hence the cost going down with subsequent launches. RND costs must also be included, as well as support system costs, staff costs, etc. Also, current starship designs require refurbishment between launches, as well as an expensive set of checks and tests on systems. 1 billion as the cost for the first fully test launch is not at all out of the ballpark.
- Isinlor 4y agoSpaceX is contracted to deliver people to the Moon surface for 2.8 billion dollars total (development + actual mission). To do it they need around 6 launches for refueling in orbit. Therefore, the very upper limit on a single Starship launch is 0.5 billion (2.8/6). And that's without development cost of Starship HLS. Single SLS launch cost without Orion, including development, will be around 4 billion dollars. 20 billion overall for SLS development + 20 billion for Orion development.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- btilly 4y agoI think it will likely cost under $10 million. https://www.cnbc.com/2022/02/11/elon-musk-spacexs-starship-is-solution-to-efficient-space-travel.html https://www.cnbc.com/2022/02/11/elon-musk-spacexs-starship-i... Do you have a source behind your estimate that a fully reusable Starship launch is over 20x the cost of a partially reusable Falcon 9 launch?
- sashahrzg 4y agoYes and full self driving will be ready late next year. Elon musk is a liar about everything he works on. The launch cost will not reach 10 million until later into the program, with the 1 million dollar launch cost estimate being a fallacy. Launch costs for the first 5 rockets will be massive.
- btilly 4y agoIn other words you don't have a source other than your confidence that Musk is a liar?
- terafo 4y agoWhere these massive launch costs are coming from? All Starship's Raptor V2 engines COMBINED cost less than refurbishment of ONE RS-25 engine. There are four RS-25 engines on SLS.
- baq 4y agodoubters had a major goalpost moving moment the first time spacex landed a falcon 9 booster. then they had another when they landed on a barge. a much smaller one when fairings were recovered. if starship misses the cost by 5x it'll still be cheaper to launch than everything other than a recoverable falcon 9 and will completely dominate all aspects of space launch business (except non-US national security payloads).
- gmiller123456 4y agoI certainly would not consider Musk a reliable source.
- Isinlor 4y agoSpaceX is contracted to deliver people to the Moon surface for 2.8 billion dollars total (development + actual mission). To do it they need around 6 launches for refueling in orbit. The very upper limit on a single Starship launch is 0.5 billion (2.8/6).
- philistine 4y agoThe real race is not whether or not SLS or Starship will launch first, but how many times will Starship launch between Artemis I and Artemis II. The more launches, the cheaper Starship gets.
- brandonagr2 4y agoAre you trying to equate the cost of the entire development program with a single launch? Hint, SpaceX has an assembly line and is cranking out new starships and boosters every couple months while SLS will launch only every few years and then be chunked into the ocean with a hardware cost in the billions PER launch.
- sashahrzg 4y agoNo I'm not equating the two. A current starship launch with all the testing and support systems is likely well above a billion dollars right now. Eventual launches will bring the price down, but as we haven't seen a full launch it's hard to tell.
- panick21_ 4y agoIts a huge difference designing a system that you know can only launch 1 a year at best and maybe 2 in a decade compared to a system architecture that is designed for 100s of launches. For SLS, the hardware cost alone is 1.5 billion. Starship has development cost, but I can guarantee you that the pure cost of ordering the hardware didn't cost 1.5 billion $.
- fallingknife 4y ago> Eventual launches will bring the price down And this is not even a possibility with the non-reusable SLS, which makes continuing it seem kind of crazy.
- Isinlor 4y agoSpaceX is contracted to deliver people to the Moon surface for 2.8 billion dollars total (development + actual mission). To do it they need around 6 launches for refueling in orbit. The very upper limit on a single Starship launch is 0.5 billion.
- exsf0859 4y agoThat's shortsightedly frugal accounting. Developing a working Starship is worth a lot to SpaceX. They could go deeply into debt on the first six launches, and make it up later.