8 ms·
You can't compare falcon to SLS because Falcon cannot do what SLS does. You can't compare SpaceX's figures to NASA because NASA has many, many more reporting o
by reso 3y ago
You can't compare falcon to SLS because Falcon cannot do what SLS does.
You can't compare SpaceX's figures to NASA because NASA has many, many more reporting obligations than SpaceX.
Every report on Falcon 9 costs has made this mistake forever. SpaceX does not release their full costs. What numbers we have for them are PR releases. Meanwhile, NASA's budgets are public and comprehensive, and they have legal parameters on what they have to include in their statements about costs that SpaceX does not have.
- resolutebat 3y agoAt time of writing, it's the opposite: Falcon is launching humans into space on a regular basis, something SLS has entirely failed to do to date.
- ISL 3y agoSLS hasn't yet been asked to launch a human.
- toss1 3y agoOnly because SLS has so far failed to qualify to launch a human. SLS was on the schedule to launch humans several years ago. However, failing to qualify means that NASA can NOT ask them to launch a human
- anticensor 3y agoUnless the Congress makes an act to force them ignore the certification status of SLS.
- Teever 3y agoHe says, implying that this is the only thing stopping that from happening. Is SLS even certified to carry people into space yet?
- nordsieck 3y ago> Is SLS even certified to carry people into space yet? It better be because Artemis-II will have people aboard Orion.
- BHSPitMonkey 3y agoFrom Wikipedia: > The SLS was created by an act of Congress in the NASA Authorization Act of 2010, Public Law 111–267, in which NASA was directed to create a system for launching payloads and crew into space that would replace the capabilities lost with the retirement of the Space Shuttle. SLS was "asked" 13 years ago to launch humans, and we are still waiting for that to happen.
- penjelly 3y agomy search says falcon has launches humans twice. Am i mistaken? that doesnt qualify as "regular basis"
- philipwhiuk 3y agoCrew-1 to Crew-6, DM-2, Inspiration 4, Axiom 1, Axiom 2 10 missions A crewed mission to the ISS every 6 months plus a handful of commercials. Your numbers are way off.
- nordsieck 3y agoAnd Crew-7 is about to take off in a week or so.
- penjelly 3y agothanks, thats what i get for asking bing instead of looking myself
- philipwhiuk 3y agoAh the penalty of dated LLM models
- andromaton 3y agoAlso for saying "my research". Saying "bing says" would have been just as bad.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- reso 3y agoThey have fundamentally different purposes, and so soundbite comparisons between them are meaningless.
- jonas21 3y agoThe article isn't based on information SpaceX released. The WSJ got their hands on internal financial documents.
- Fluorescence 3y agoThat's naive. Such leaks are typically planned PR. I expect it is leading to another round of fund raising. They are described as a money incinerator that has already run through the alphabet of rounds. They want to counter that without putting anything on the record because... well, you can guess why.
- nordsieck 3y ago> Every report on Falcon 9 costs has made this mistake forever. SpaceX does not release their full costs. Not really relevant. The correct metric to make the comparison on is the fully amortized cost to the government per launch. The government doesn't pay for SpaceX's facilities or development - all of those costs are rolled into the launch price. But that's not true of SLS.
- reso 3y agoIt is not possible to do a fair comparison of launch costs between Falcon 9 and other platforms without knowing the true cost of Falcon 9 launches.
- nordsieck 3y ago> It is not possible to do a fair comparison of launch costs between Falcon 9 and other platforms without knowing the true cost of Falcon 9 launches. I don't know why you're so obsessed with cost. The only thing that matters when it comes to commercial providers is price. And SpaceX, (as far as I can tell) stands alone among the medium-heavy lift providers by providing a price directly on their website. Of course, for government launches the government typically wants extra services, which does boost the prices different levels for different missions (I think the Europa Clipper mission is particularly expensive for example). But all of those missions are competitively bid, and SpaceX tends to be the low price bidder, so those extra fees seem like they're probably pretty reasonable.
- objektif 3y agoPrice is not a good metric here you can subsidize your pricing to hell if you have budget. Elon loves to do this btw.
- bryanlarsen 3y agoThe headline is that SpaceX is profitable, so they're not pricing below cost.
- moffkalast 3y ago61 launches is quite a lot. The SLS can do about 100 tons to LEO, a standard F9 can do 22 tons albeit with a much smaller fairing. So in total if you split your vehicle up and assemble it in orbit you can launch one that's almost 5x the size for the same price. Maybe more like 3x + extra engineering overhead costs for the orbital assembly, but still much more bang for the buck. The lunar gateway is planned to be a station anyway so those costs will have to be paid regardless.
- dabluecaboose 3y ago>Falcon cannot do what SLS does. Thus far, SLS has only done once what Falcon does on the regular: Launch a payload into orbit
- jackmott 3y ago[dead]
- cameldrv 3y agoYou can easily compare what SpaceX charges for a launch. Wikipedia says Falcon Heavy expendible is 63 tons to LEO and $155M. SLS is supposedly 95 tons to LEO and 2 Billion.
- HumanReadable 3y agoOf course the Falcon can be compared to the SLS. Both are vehicles designed to take things into space for crying out loud! The figures are easy to compare as well. Just include these factors in your comparison! Even if we don't know exactly what those factors are, we can make a ballpark estimate the total difference and add that as a percentage to spaceX's final figure. The idea that things can't be compared because they are different is nonsense. When things are different is the only time comparisons are meaningful to make!
- 4gotunameagain 3y ago>Both are vehicles designed to take things into space for crying out loud! They have quite different fairing capacities, in a playfield that does not scale linearly. It is like saying that the Boeing 737 is cheaper than the 777, and we can compare them because they were both designed to fly people in the sky.
- panick21_ 3y agoYou can compare a 737 to 777 and if the 777 per person were 10x more expensive then airlines wouldnt use 777. Not sure why this is hard do unterstand.
- 4gotunameagain 3y agoBecause things in space do not scale linearly, and sending 10x smaller sats is not the same as 1x 10 times larger sat. Some missions require larger fairing/lifting capacities.