3 ms·
Not cost per kilo, price. These numbers aren't comparable as-is, you have to look at the cost structure.
by tadfisher 14y ago
Not cost per kilo, price. These numbers aren't comparable as-is, you have to look at the cost structure.
- eupharis 14y agoThis is cost in terms of "how much will it cost me to hire SpaceX or the Soyuz to take my tourist self / science experiment / mining robot to LEO." If you want to call that price, go for it. Obviously this is pure theorycraft for the Space Shuttle. But if anyone has a better number please share! $/kg is the crucial number that has to fall to bring about a new era in space exploration. Except for SpaceX, space launch companies don't publish their prices straight up on the website. But about $5,000 per kg ballpark figure for Soyuz seems widely to be accepted by credible sources on the internet and books. See: http://books.google.com/books?id=kN9Szy-fJVIC&pg=PA69&lpg=PA69&#v=onepage&q&f=false http://books.google.com/books?id=kN9Szy-fJVIC&pg=PA69... If someone has harder numbers for the Soyuz, please share!
- InclinedPlane 14y ago"Obviously this is pure theorycraft for the Space Shuttle. But if anyone has a better number please share!" A moot point now, since the Shuttle isn't operational. However, when it was running the incremental cost to NASA was around $500 mil per launch, so roughly $20,500 per kg to LEO. Tallying the full cost per Shuttle launch (i.e. the cost to the tax payers over the full history of the program) runs to about $1.5 billion per launch, so adjust those numbers above up by a factor of 3.