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It's hard to say from the outside because of all the optimism. They are targeting $250k per engine, and have thrown around numbers like $5-10m for the fuselage(
by danpalmer 3y ago
It's hard to say from the outside because of all the optimism. They are targeting $250k per engine, and have thrown around numbers like $5-10m for the fuselage(?).
From what I understand, the engines are still >$1m each, but coming down as they ramp up production speed and have radically simplified the engines with V2. The body is probably also much higher than the target range, but bearing in mind that it's just stainless steel and relatively well known manufacturing techniques, and not aluminium going through complex and expensive manufacturing techniques, they're probably well under any other typical rocket. I'd assume even significantly less than a new Falcon 9, which is already the low end of the industry in terms of price.
Another thing I'd bear in mind is that many of these ships never got completed, on purpose. There have been explicit "pathfinder" builds, but even with the "real" ships most never flew and were pretty much about working through techniques, tools, materials, etc. These won't have needed a full fit-out and will have been cheaper.
Edit: updated engine target from 500k to 250k