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I believe this is factually inaccurate. What's your source? Though admittedly, we have to depend on BO's predictions for per-kg launch costs, and those may be

I believe this is factually inaccurate. What's your source? Though admittedly, we have to depend on BO's predictions for per-kg launch costs, and those may be a lot higher for the first few missions and gradually ease off. Google's AI tells me the current costs for a Starship launch is somewhere between $100m and $2b. Wikipedia says a Falcon 9 costs about $50m and can lift about 20t to LEO. I see a blurb that says Musk says Starship launches will get down to $10m each. But... that seems like an "asperational statement." He also said Full Self Driving Mode would be available in 2018, 2019, 2022 and 2025. Not trying to take away from the absolutely cool stuff his companies have done, but it seems like it will be a while before it costs $10m to launch a Starship. This link from 2 years ago estimates a New Glenn launch costing $68m. I have no idea how accurate that number is. But if we're going to use Musk's "asperational" cost estimate for Starship launches in the distant future, we should let BO use an "asperational" figure as well. https://www.cnbc.com/amp/2022/04/05/amazon-signs-rocket-deal-with-blue-origin-arianespace-ula-for-project-kuiper-internet-satellites.html https://www.cnbc.com/amp/2022/04/05/amazon-signs-rocket-deal...

OhMeadhbh 2y ago
Dudes. You don't have to down-vote me 'cause I'm just asking for where you got your numbers. I'm not saying you're a horrible person and that SpaceX sucks. I'm saying I have numbers that don't match yours. Let's compare numbers / sources and see what the most likely values would be near-term and long-term.
zizee 2y ago
Ok, so your argument for Starship not being the best choice for all mission profiles is based solely on cost. If Starship was cheaper, then you'd agree that it serves the mission profiles? An estimate of 2 billion per launch is laughable, and suggests you are not arguing in good faith. 100m is more accurate for a fully disposable launch, and SpaceX has demonstrated great progress on reusability of the booster, which will cut costs considerably.
- Retric 2y ago
  2 billion at the high end isn’t actually unreasonable when compared to falcon 9’s costs which are sitting around 100m/launch right now largely due to inflation. There’s a have a fairly linear relationship between rocket payload and size, and for large structures going big tends to increase cost per pound so ~10x the size resulting in ~20x the cost is just mildly pessimistic. If and only if they the thing is both rapidly reusable and individual starships are actually used for hundreds of launches do those highly optimistic numbers become vaguely possible. Even just a 0.2% failure rate would represent a massive increase over their optimistic estimates.
  - zizee 2y ago
    2 billion is ridiculous, and I can only imagine that number was a misunderstanding SpaceX/Musk saying that they were spending 2 billion in a full year of R&D on Starship. https://spacenews.com/spacex-investment-in-starship-approaches-5-billion/ https://spacenews.com/spacex-investment-in-starship-approach...
    - Retric 2y ago
      That doesn’t justify why it’s ridiculous, it’s just a coincidence. I doubt SpaceX’s internal costs are ~100m/falcon 9 launch, but companies need a markup to be profitable. 100m - 2B is a huge range covering everything from giving up on reusability and paying back R&D over a small number of flights to significant success resulting in a 90% reduction in costs per kg to LEO. Also, having spent 5B on R&D and doing 5 test flights up to this point works out to 1 billion per flight. That’s not the actual marginal cost per flight, but when people say how expensive each shuttle flight was that’s the number they use. Nothing guarantees they continue to do Starship launches, they could fail it’s among the potential outcomes.
      - zizee 2y ago
        It's ridiculous because the much ridiculed SLS has a launch cost of 2 billion dollars. If you think SpaceX is throwing billions of dollars into developing a vehicle that costs thisuch to launch, you clearly haven't been following SpaceX at all. You know there is going to be more that 5 flights, and you know people in this thread are not amortizing total R&D into flight costs. People are talking about 68 million per flight for New Glenn, which no doubt has has many hundreds of millions on R&D spend, and hasn't flown one time.
bryanlarsen 2y ago
Those Starship costs you quote assume an expended booster and the New Glenn costs assume a recovered booster. We don't have to use Musk's cost figures for Starship. Starship has been built in the open and can be relatively accurately cost estimated by experts.
FireBeyond 2y ago
> He also said Full Self Driving Mode would be available in 2018, 2019, 2022 and 2025. He did. He also said it'd be available in 2016, 2017, 2020, 2021, 2023 and 2024. So yeah...

OhMeadhbh 2y ago

Dudes. You don't have to down-vote me 'cause I'm just asking for where you got your numbers. I'm not saying you're a horrible person and that SpaceX sucks. I'm saying I have numbers that don't match yours. Let's compare numbers / sources and see what the most likely values would be near-term and long-term.

zizee 2y ago

Ok, so your argument for Starship not being the best choice for all mission profiles is based solely on cost. If Starship was cheaper, then you'd agree that it serves the mission profiles? An estimate of 2 billion per launch is laughable, and suggests you are not arguing in good faith. 100m is more accurate for a fully disposable launch, and SpaceX has demonstrated great progress on reusability of the booster, which will cut costs considerably.

Retric 2y ago
2 billion at the high end isn’t actually unreasonable when compared to falcon 9’s costs which are sitting around 100m/launch right now largely due to inflation. There’s a have a fairly linear relationship between rocket payload and size, and for large structures going big tends to increase cost per pound so ~10x the size resulting in ~20x the cost is just mildly pessimistic. If and only if they the thing is both rapidly reusable and individual starships are actually used for hundreds of launches do those highly optimistic numbers become vaguely possible. Even just a 0.2% failure rate would represent a massive increase over their optimistic estimates.
- zizee 2y ago
  2 billion is ridiculous, and I can only imagine that number was a misunderstanding SpaceX/Musk saying that they were spending 2 billion in a full year of R&D on Starship. https://spacenews.com/spacex-investment-in-starship-approaches-5-billion/ https://spacenews.com/spacex-investment-in-starship-approach...
  - Retric 2y ago
    That doesn’t justify why it’s ridiculous, it’s just a coincidence. I doubt SpaceX’s internal costs are ~100m/falcon 9 launch, but companies need a markup to be profitable. 100m - 2B is a huge range covering everything from giving up on reusability and paying back R&D over a small number of flights to significant success resulting in a 90% reduction in costs per kg to LEO. Also, having spent 5B on R&D and doing 5 test flights up to this point works out to 1 billion per flight. That’s not the actual marginal cost per flight, but when people say how expensive each shuttle flight was that’s the number they use. Nothing guarantees they continue to do Starship launches, they could fail it’s among the potential outcomes.
    - zizee 2y ago
      It's ridiculous because the much ridiculed SLS has a launch cost of 2 billion dollars. If you think SpaceX is throwing billions of dollars into developing a vehicle that costs thisuch to launch, you clearly haven't been following SpaceX at all. You know there is going to be more that 5 flights, and you know people in this thread are not amortizing total R&D into flight costs. People are talking about 68 million per flight for New Glenn, which no doubt has has many hundreds of millions on R&D spend, and hasn't flown one time.

bryanlarsen 2y ago

Those Starship costs you quote assume an expended booster and the New Glenn costs assume a recovered booster. We don't have to use Musk's cost figures for Starship. Starship has been built in the open and can be relatively accurately cost estimated by experts.

FireBeyond 2y ago

> He also said Full Self Driving Mode would be available in 2018, 2019, 2022 and 2025. He did. He also said it'd be available in 2016, 2017, 2020, 2021, 2023 and 2024. So yeah...