3 ms·

It absolutely can't be a price of first class ticket (10-20k$). Let's take for example Elon's completely fantasy figure of eventual 2 mil dollars per launch. Th

by Yizahi 4y ago

It absolutely can't be a price of first class ticket (10-20k$). Let's take for example Elon's completely fantasy figure of eventual 2 mil dollars per launch. That's 20k$ per seat, so it looks like comparison checks out? Well no. First you need to include price of the floating megaports at each destination in the world. The cost of a single such human rated platform divided by a number of physical rockets using it per year will be many orders of magnitude higher than a price of airport divided by the number of planes serviced per yer. Second you will need a lot of highly expensive maintenance crew members at each location (more expensive per person than airplane maintenance crews). Plus much much bigger staff at the dispatcher tower in each location, compared to a handful of aircraft dispatchers in an airport servicing hundreds of planes simultaneously. Third you will need a private (and thus unprofitable) public transportation lines/ships to each of the rocket starts. 4th - you will need a lot of training facilities for the prospective passengers. And staff for them. 5th - you will need low orbit rated space suits in a variety of the sizes at each location. And maintenance and repair facilities for them. Dragon low orbit suit clock at about 0.5 mil dollars today. 4 suits and that's more that entire fuel cost for the launch :) (theoretical cost, with best outcome). Even is economies of scale will help to lower costs 2-3 times (doubtful) it still doesn't scale to a global E2E operations. I'm probably missing some other significant costs but you can get the picture. It will never be a first class ticket price because it is impossible. And that's not even counting other blockers for this idea.

btilly 4y ago
Well, you're consistently negative about this. First, you're doing a ton of double counting. The estimated $2 million/launch already includes necessary infrastructure, servicing, and so on. Second you're assuming a ton of totally unnecessary gold plating. For example you talk about "floating megaports". In actuality they've been taking barges (available for about $1 million) and retrofitting them. Starship needs a bigger and stronger ship, with infrastructure built on it. Suppose that it is about $10 million. (Which is roughly the cost of a basic containership.) You could put out a couple of hundred of these for the average cost of a new airport. It would only make sense to go to a megaport if the cost per passenger were less than it is now. Third, you're ignoring the possibilities of automation. For example your "army of dispatchers" is solving a problem which will certainly be solved by computers. In fact it has to be - because most of the problems will be encountered in the possibility of collisions in space. And we're having to track the entire constellation of everything up there, ranging from rockets to pieces of space junk. And fourth, you're ignoring costs that already exist for airplanes. For example airplanes have expensive pilots while rockets don't.
- Yizahi 4y ago
  Of course I'm negative. The mere list of blocking problems for such idea can fill several pages even without expanding them. First of all - nobody including Elon himself can estimate eventual Starship launch cost. Second - Elon have said that maybe it can come down to 2 mil and that most of that price would be fuel. So he was wildly optimistic as for production and maintenance of the actual hardware. In that interview iirc he was going from an assumption that Starship is already at the high end of reusability (multiple tens of flights or more) and flying regularly. No one including himself published any total esimations for the total costs of the E2E system as whole and I'm pretty sure that 2 mil does not include any costs for platforms, transit to them, spacesuits, training facilities and dispatchers (new ones, outside of the existing in USA). Maybe he included start gantry, and some preflight checks. Maybe not even that. Regarding platform cost, I think your estimate is way off. You are forgetting that unlike Elon's barges it need to be a) human rated, b) civilian human rated, c) internationally civilian human rated. It would need a lot of facilities for human on board, it will need some elaborate start rescue systems for 100 space suited passengers. Platform would need extensive protections from them the launch of this insanely powerful rocket (repeated and low on maintenance). Platform would need some kind of armored bunkers for the cryogenic fuels or an extra powered platform which can come for fueling and go away (x2 costs for two platforms). Some kind of evacuation facilities for hundreds of humans in case of a platform fire. A billion of things really. Each one platform will go to hundreds of millions, definitely not a mere 10 mil. Fortunately I work in IT, so nope, any amount of automation added will simply require the same amount of even more experienced humans supervising them PLUS new people manufacturing, debugging and maintaining said automation. Starship pilot would cost much more than an airline pilot. Maybe on par in the best case. And I have to repeat myself - that's ONLY cost considerations. There a lot of other problems. International permissions for airspace Total time for the end to end trip (platforms will be VERY far from the cities, exponentially depending from the city size). As soon as that time exceeds 10-12 hours this whole idea is junk. Total time to train civilian passenger. Total time to train old aged civilian passenger. Tha includes both for rocket, for escaping it, for using a spacesuit etc. G forces. Why would older billionaires suffer that, potentially risking some aneurism or trombosis or worse? 100 passengers together. So you think 100 billionaires would voluntarily be packed liked sardines in the same confined space with one another? Lol, high society doesn't work like a lowly public bus to the factory. 100 billionaire passengers planning the same trip weeks/months in advance to the same city at the same time? Business does not work like that. They need to go anywhere at the moments notice, when they want, without waiting for a bus... erm.. Starship to fill up. And doing this not as a stunt once a year, but many times a day? Forget about it :) . Things missing from the regular flight - comfortable private seat in the 1st or a jet (remember price would be so high that a even a big jet price would be cheaper, with all the seats together still cheaper). Comfortable talking and working conditions. Comfortable transit on land, not on a choppy sea. Comfortable suit instead of spacesuit. Gourmet food and alcohol. Chosen company. A lot of things.

by Yizahi 4y ago

btilly 4y ago

Well, you're consistently negative about this. First, you're doing a ton of double counting. The estimated $2 million/launch already includes necessary infrastructure, servicing, and so on. Second you're assuming a ton of totally unnecessary gold plating. For example you talk about "floating megaports". In actuality they've been taking barges (available for about $1 million) and retrofitting them. Starship needs a bigger and stronger ship, with infrastructure built on it. Suppose that it is about $10 million. (Which is roughly the cost of a basic containership.) You could put out a couple of hundred of these for the average cost of a new airport. It would only make sense to go to a megaport if the cost per passenger were less than it is now. Third, you're ignoring the possibilities of automation. For example your "army of dispatchers" is solving a problem which will certainly be solved by computers. In fact it has to be - because most of the problems will be encountered in the possibility of collisions in space. And we're having to track the entire constellation of everything up there, ranging from rockets to pieces of space junk. And fourth, you're ignoring costs that already exist for airplanes. For example airplanes have expensive pilots while rockets don't.

Yizahi 4y ago
Of course I'm negative. The mere list of blocking problems for such idea can fill several pages even without expanding them. First of all - nobody including Elon himself can estimate eventual Starship launch cost. Second - Elon have said that maybe it can come down to 2 mil and that most of that price would be fuel. So he was wildly optimistic as for production and maintenance of the actual hardware. In that interview iirc he was going from an assumption that Starship is already at the high end of reusability (multiple tens of flights or more) and flying regularly. No one including himself published any total esimations for the total costs of the E2E system as whole and I'm pretty sure that 2 mil does not include any costs for platforms, transit to them, spacesuits, training facilities and dispatchers (new ones, outside of the existing in USA). Maybe he included start gantry, and some preflight checks. Maybe not even that. Regarding platform cost, I think your estimate is way off. You are forgetting that unlike Elon's barges it need to be a) human rated, b) civilian human rated, c) internationally civilian human rated. It would need a lot of facilities for human on board, it will need some elaborate start rescue systems for 100 space suited passengers. Platform would need extensive protections from them the launch of this insanely powerful rocket (repeated and low on maintenance). Platform would need some kind of armored bunkers for the cryogenic fuels or an extra powered platform which can come for fueling and go away (x2 costs for two platforms). Some kind of evacuation facilities for hundreds of humans in case of a platform fire. A billion of things really. Each one platform will go to hundreds of millions, definitely not a mere 10 mil. Fortunately I work in IT, so nope, any amount of automation added will simply require the same amount of even more experienced humans supervising them PLUS new people manufacturing, debugging and maintaining said automation. Starship pilot would cost much more than an airline pilot. Maybe on par in the best case. And I have to repeat myself - that's ONLY cost considerations. There a lot of other problems. International permissions for airspace Total time for the end to end trip (platforms will be VERY far from the cities, exponentially depending from the city size). As soon as that time exceeds 10-12 hours this whole idea is junk. Total time to train civilian passenger. Total time to train old aged civilian passenger. Tha includes both for rocket, for escaping it, for using a spacesuit etc. G forces. Why would older billionaires suffer that, potentially risking some aneurism or trombosis or worse? 100 passengers together. So you think 100 billionaires would voluntarily be packed liked sardines in the same confined space with one another? Lol, high society doesn't work like a lowly public bus to the factory. 100 billionaire passengers planning the same trip weeks/months in advance to the same city at the same time? Business does not work like that. They need to go anywhere at the moments notice, when they want, without waiting for a bus... erm.. Starship to fill up. And doing this not as a stunt once a year, but many times a day? Forget about it :) . Things missing from the regular flight - comfortable private seat in the 1st or a jet (remember price would be so high that a even a big jet price would be cheaper, with all the seats together still cheaper). Comfortable talking and working conditions. Comfortable transit on land, not on a choppy sea. Comfortable suit instead of spacesuit. Gourmet food and alcohol. Chosen company. A lot of things.