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>Saturn V did in a single launch with 1969 technology, for up to 0.8% US GDP per year. Today that would be $200B/year, pure spent. Where is Space X today is ma
by trhway 1y ago
>Saturn V did in a single launch with 1969 technology,
for up to 0.8% US GDP per year. Today that would be $200B/year, pure spent. Where is Space X today is making, ie. it has a revenue, $15B/year.
>Perhaps web development is not the only thing that is susceptible to bloat.
similarly - web dev today can be done on $300 laptop by any schmuck. Even simple programming back then required a computer which cost a lot, and it was an almost academic activity.
- supermatt 1y agoSure, but spacex are building on the shoulders of what came before. Easy to save 200bn on research and development if someone else has already paid for it and shares the results for free.
- inglor_cz 1y agoThis is true, but also a bit trivial to observe. Even the Primitive Technology channel, which usually starts with mud and clay, builds on knowledge of other people. The value added is interesting. For example, both the Merlin and the Raptor family of engines. These are some fine engines, and they are remarkably cheap and reusable.
- supermatt 1y agooh sure, no doubt - and the universe before that, etc. but here the baseline set by the comment i responded to was "whatever nasa spent 200b on".
- motorest 1y ago> for up to 0.8% US GDP per year. Today that would be $200B/year, pure spent. Where is Space X today is making, ie. it has a revenue, $15B/year. The likes of SpaceX are reporting costs in the range of $15B/year because NASA front loaded the cost of trailblazing launch technology half a century ago, with the technology available half a century ago. Let's not fool ourselves into believing the likes of SpaceX are reinventing the wheel. Also, those $15B are buying a fraction of the capabilities of SaturnV, and while SaturnV was proven effective and reliable 50 years ago, here we are discussing yet another "anomaly". Perhaps half these "anomalies" wouldn't exist if they weren't lean'ed into existence?
- supermatt 1y ago> NASA front loaded the cost Not even just NASA. SpaceX are building on technologies that originated from both sides of the iron curtain (and beyond)
- schiffern 1y agoHeck, fundamentally it's building on Iron Age technology, which is thousands of years old. How far back is the "start" of history in this telling, and (more importantly) why?
- varjag 1y agoIt's not unreasonable to suggest that most of specifically rocket and spacefaring technology SpaceX uses now was introduced by someone else. Their main achievement is reusability and adjacent technical solutions.
- supermatt 1y agoAre you being deliberately obtuse? The grandparent comment was pointing out that it cost NASA 200bn, and spaceX 15bn. The parent comment pointed out that spaceX are actually saving money because they already got what nasa spent 200bn on. My comment pointed out that they aren't just saving money by using NASAs tech, but tech from the Soviet Union as well - suggesting that their savings are far beyond just 200bn R&D
- b112 1y agoNot sure about parent poster, but to be fair NASA built on German WWII rocket/missile development, and Canadian know how after the collapse of Avro Canada. How many billions was that? This sort of "they're just building on" talk is weird to me, and not really relevant. What SpaceX has accomplished is astonishing, and no belittling of their accomplishments should be tolerated.
- motorest 1y ago
- hliyan 1y agoThis seems off. According to this: https://www.planetary.org/space-policy/cost-of-apollo https://www.planetary.org/space-policy/cost-of-apollo (or in more detail: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/e/2PACX-1vTKMekJW9F8Z3fWnx-IxvHSPD35iZxZxDVoqIp25FaxxXjOqJ2Rk-zS858dND0N_3cwcacbIX8gr9xt/pubhtml https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/e/2PACX-1vTKMekJW9F8Z... ) Total lunar effort from 1960-1973, adjusted for 2024 USD: $326 billion Launch vehicle costs (Saturn V): $113 billion I think this is what should be compared against the total Starship program cost starting from 2020 until such time it completes 6 lunar landings (not counting SLS or other costs). Or, for the year that Starship actually lands on the moon, compare against the Saturn V launch vehicle costs for 1969, inflation adjusted: $5.9 billion. See: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/e/2PACX-1vTKMekJW9F8Z3fWnx-IxvHSPD35iZxZxDVoqIp25FaxxXjOqJ2Rk-zS858dND0N_3cwcacbIX8gr9xt/pubhtml# https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/e/2PACX-1vTKMekJW9F8Z...
- dzhiurgis 1y agoSingle Starship stack is <$100m so they are less than 1% in.
- jve 1y agoI love this quote from Gwynne Shotwell when asked how they achieved that no government has: "The first is that we're kind of standing on the shoulders of giants." Source: https://youtu.be/Dar8P3r7GYA?si=RHZ8lWFYKrd7qQhy&t=321 https://youtu.be/Dar8P3r7GYA?si=RHZ8lWFYKrd7qQhy&t=321
- s1artibartfast 1y ago% GDP isn't an inflation adjustment. 0.8% US GDP in 1969 would be about 8B/yr today. Very different answer
- trhway 1y agoUS GDP 2024 is $29T. Thus 0.8% is $230B.
- s1artibartfast 1y agoExpense scales with inflation, not GDP, which is the point.