6 ms·

No need to be condescending when communication is ambiguous. Your question can be better phrased as, "How much did it cost for Saturn V to reach the point where

No need to be condescending when communication is ambiguous. Your question can be better phrased as, "How much did it cost for Saturn V to reach the point where it could successfully orbit?" which I assume means "how much did it cost up to and including Apollo 4?"

dylan604 1y ago
Wouldn't the cost of all of Mercury and Gemini missions need to be included in this as they could not have Apollo without the others first.
- fluoridation 1y ago
  Those weren't on the Saturn V, though. They were various rockets for Mercury, and Titan II for Gemini.
  - dylan604 1y ago
    Do you think they would/could have built the Saturn V without building the other engines first?
    - fluoridation 1y ago
      If we're going down this road, we'd have to include the global GDP back thousands of years. I asked specifically about Saturn V so I could make a reasonable comparison between it and Starship.
      - terminalshort 1y ago
        What about the costs paid by the Song dynasty to develop rockets in the 13th century!
        fluoridation 1y ago
        Never mind that. Remember that Grug had to die from eating poisonous mushrooms for the first time, all so we could have disposable plastic forks.
    - anonymars 1y ago
      I think as phrased this is going to get way too pedantic. But I think it raises a larger point which is worthy to consider. Presumably what we're trying to get at is, in broad strokes, "is Starship more cost-effective to develop than Saturn V" (and I assume the follow-on for that will be to compare the "NASA approach" vs the "SpaceX approach") But you raise a good point in that the baseline playing field is completely different. The existing knowledge each program started with, be it in materials science, understanding of rocket combustion, heat shield technology, electronics, simulation ability, you name it, it's completely different. So we can find and pull out whatever numbers, but I don't think it's possible for them to say anything meaningful for comparison on their own.
      - fluoridation 1y ago
        >but I don't think it's possible for them to say anything meaningful for comparison on their own. It depends on how different they are. Saturn V was launched 13 times in total. Starship is already 75% of the way there and hasn't orbited once. Ignoring R&D and just going by launch costs alone, that's USD 4B (2025) to orbit 1 Saturn V, vs USD x to orbit 1 Starship, where x >= 1B.
        dylan604 1y ago
        > Saturn V was launched 13 times in total. Starship is already 75% of the way there Apollo 1 - lost on the launch pad, crew killed. very bad Apollo 13 - major malfunction causing loss of mission but crew saved. very not bad Starship - 10 launches 5 failures. No crew ever so that pressure is also not comparable. Are we really claiming Starship has achieved 75% of the results of Apollo? That's absolutely ludicrous
        fluoridation 1y ago
        Starship is 75% of the way to 13 launches. That's just mathematically correct.
        dylan604 1y ago
- thesmart 1y ago
  So you think SpaceX isn't building on the shoulders of giants? There are teams of incredible engineers working there because NASA paved the way.
- terminalshort 1y ago
  And then we also need to add the costs of the V2, because surely we wouldn't have had Mercury and Gemini without the V2 first... and of course we wouldn't have that if the Chinese hadn't developed the first rockets in the 13th century, so we need to figure out their development costs. Where does it stop?

dylan604 1y ago

Wouldn't the cost of all of Mercury and Gemini missions need to be included in this as they could not have Apollo without the others first.

fluoridation 1y ago
Those weren't on the Saturn V, though. They were various rockets for Mercury, and Titan II for Gemini.
- dylan604 1y ago
  Do you think they would/could have built the Saturn V without building the other engines first?
  - fluoridation 1y ago
    If we're going down this road, we'd have to include the global GDP back thousands of years. I asked specifically about Saturn V so I could make a reasonable comparison between it and Starship.
    - terminalshort 1y ago
      What about the costs paid by the Song dynasty to develop rockets in the 13th century!
      - fluoridation 1y ago
        Never mind that. Remember that Grug had to die from eating poisonous mushrooms for the first time, all so we could have disposable plastic forks.
  - anonymars 1y ago
    I think as phrased this is going to get way too pedantic. But I think it raises a larger point which is worthy to consider. Presumably what we're trying to get at is, in broad strokes, "is Starship more cost-effective to develop than Saturn V" (and I assume the follow-on for that will be to compare the "NASA approach" vs the "SpaceX approach") But you raise a good point in that the baseline playing field is completely different. The existing knowledge each program started with, be it in materials science, understanding of rocket combustion, heat shield technology, electronics, simulation ability, you name it, it's completely different. So we can find and pull out whatever numbers, but I don't think it's possible for them to say anything meaningful for comparison on their own.
    - fluoridation 1y ago
      >but I don't think it's possible for them to say anything meaningful for comparison on their own. It depends on how different they are. Saturn V was launched 13 times in total. Starship is already 75% of the way there and hasn't orbited once. Ignoring R&D and just going by launch costs alone, that's USD 4B (2025) to orbit 1 Saturn V, vs USD x to orbit 1 Starship, where x >= 1B.
      - dylan604 1y ago
        > Saturn V was launched 13 times in total. Starship is already 75% of the way there Apollo 1 - lost on the launch pad, crew killed. very bad Apollo 13 - major malfunction causing loss of mission but crew saved. very not bad Starship - 10 launches 5 failures. No crew ever so that pressure is also not comparable. Are we really claiming Starship has achieved 75% of the results of Apollo? That's absolutely ludicrous
        fluoridation 1y ago
        Starship is 75% of the way to 13 launches. That's just mathematically correct.
        dylan604 1y ago
thesmart 1y ago
So you think SpaceX isn't building on the shoulders of giants? There are teams of incredible engineers working there because NASA paved the way.
terminalshort 1y ago
And then we also need to add the costs of the V2, because surely we wouldn't have had Mercury and Gemini without the V2 first... and of course we wouldn't have that if the Chinese hadn't developed the first rockets in the 13th century, so we need to figure out their development costs. Where does it stop?