>Yet, the Saturn V launched 50 tonnes to the Moon for only $1.8 billion in today’s dollars According to Wikipedia the Apollo program cost $257 billion in 2020

>Yet, the Saturn V launched 50 tonnes to the Moon for only $1.8 billion in today’s dollars According to Wikipedia the Apollo program cost $257 billion in 2020 dollars which given ~20% inflation since is a little over $300bn. The $10bn on Starship so far is quite modest in comparison. The article seems a bit biased against it. I mean: >Is this progress? If we are being pedantic, sure. Reusing a Super Heavy Booster and reaching orbital speeds without exploding are both steps forward. But in all actuality, this was a lateral move. Getting to orbit when you haven't before isn't progress? C'mon. Musk did a presentation on how it's going a couple of days ago http://x.com/SpaceX/status/1928185351933239641 http://x.com/SpaceX/status/1928185351933239641 It's quite interesting. Some seems like usual Musk overoptimtic projections but they've made a lot of progress on the raptor 3 engine which is a real thing that's working.