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>So for instance the Space Shuttle was only retired in 2011. After all was said and done it ended up costing $1.6 billion per launch - about $30,000 per pound o

by TMWNN 3y ago

>So for instance the Space Shuttle was only retired in 2011. After all was said and done it ended up costing $1.6 billion per launch - about $30,000 per pound of payload. The Falcon Heavy costs about $0.1 billion (in reusable mode) and brought the costs down to less than $700/lb. Is that an apples-to-apples comparison? Each shuttle launch cost $1.5 billion when including development cost (that is, $200 billion in total spending on the STS program / 135 launches); as your link discusses, the incremental cost per launch was "merely" $450-500 million. The $0.1 billion figure per Falcon Heavy launch is only the incremental cost since we don't know how much Falcon Heavy cost to develop (And how to account for the Falcon 9 development costs that Heavy is heavily based on?). Obviously Falcon 9/Heavy has every potential for launching far more times than the shuttle, further reducing the development cost allocated to each launch (or at least, until Starship gets going I guess). But we ought to be as accurate as possible in comparing Falcon and STS.

somenameforme 3y ago
It's all about what the customer pays. In the case of the Space Shuttle the customer also completely paid for the development of the launch system, so it doesn't really make sense to exclude that. It's also fair to include it because it's also included for SpaceX. When we say a Falcon Heavy got launch costs down to below $700/lb, that also includes a enough of a profit margin built in to completely fund their past operations and development, as well as future ones. SpaceX's 'real' (in the sense you're speaking of) per launch costs are going to be substantially lower than even $700/lb. In the case of Boeing/Lockeed/etc, they didn't have to pay for any of this - as it was all completely taxpayer funded. That should have enabled them to offer prices that would be unbeatable by any company paying for their own operations. --- To put this another way, imagine Boeing et al operated like SpaceX, or frankly most any "normal" company does. They would need to set their launch prices in a fashion such that they'd be able to recoup their tens of billions of dollars in development costs on the Space Shuttle, and then also add a profit margin on top. It's likely their charged cost per launch would have been even higher than $1.6 billion!
- TMWNN 3y ago
  > It's all about what the customer pays. In the case of the Space Shuttle the customer also completely paid for the development of the launch system, so it doesn't really make sense to exclude that. Good point. I agree that from the customer's perspective, the flyaway cost is what matters. That said, wouldn't that also mean that for Starlink launches, the development cost would still have to be amortized across them when they are not for other launches? That doesn't feel right to me; surely the flyaway/incremental cost is still what matters.

by TMWNN 3y ago

somenameforme 3y ago

It's all about what the customer pays. In the case of the Space Shuttle the customer also completely paid for the development of the launch system, so it doesn't really make sense to exclude that. It's also fair to include it because it's also included for SpaceX. When we say a Falcon Heavy got launch costs down to below $700/lb, that also includes a enough of a profit margin built in to completely fund their past operations and development, as well as future ones. SpaceX's 'real' (in the sense you're speaking of) per launch costs are going to be substantially lower than even $700/lb. In the case of Boeing/Lockeed/etc, they didn't have to pay for any of this - as it was all completely taxpayer funded. That should have enabled them to offer prices that would be unbeatable by any company paying for their own operations. --- To put this another way, imagine Boeing et al operated like SpaceX, or frankly most any "normal" company does. They would need to set their launch prices in a fashion such that they'd be able to recoup their tens of billions of dollars in development costs on the Space Shuttle, and then also add a profit margin on top. It's likely their charged cost per launch would have been even higher than $1.6 billion!

TMWNN 3y ago
> It's all about what the customer pays. In the case of the Space Shuttle the customer also completely paid for the development of the launch system, so it doesn't really make sense to exclude that. Good point. I agree that from the customer's perspective, the flyaway cost is what matters. That said, wouldn't that also mean that for Starlink launches, the development cost would still have to be amortized across them when they are not for other launches? That doesn't feel right to me; surely the flyaway/incremental cost is still what matters.