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The cheapest and most popular rocket today in terms of cost per kilogram sent to low-earth-orbit is the SpaceX Falcon 9, which is estimated to cost about $2700/

The cheapest and most popular rocket today in terms of cost per kilogram sent to low-earth-orbit is the SpaceX Falcon 9, which is estimated to cost about $2700/kg. If the Starship meets its goals, it will cost $10/kg to LEO. It has a payload capacity and infrastructure which can economically deliver massive payloads to any solid surface in the solar system. It could send three full-sized bulldozers to Mars in a single trip. This is the largest scale space project ever conceived and portents a major shake-up to the space industry and a big step towards establishing a permanent human presence off Earth.

BenoitP 3y ago
$10/kg to LEO is insane
- markdown 3y ago
  That's the cost to SpaceX. There's no way they charge customers anywhere near that.
  - MPSimmons 3y ago
    Even if they charged $100/kg it would change the world.
- detuur 3y ago
  It is. The Falcon 9, of which there have been hundreds of launches already, costs $60 Million per launch. And somehow Musk thinks he can make a rocket that is 10 times bigger 30 times cheaper? Wishful thinking. Best case imho is that they take the launch cost down to about 200M-ish over the next 15 years. That's a cost of $1000/kg and sounds about right to me.
checkyoursudo 3y ago
How much of a setback would disaster be? Would SpaceX keep going, or would failure leave room for competitors to take over? (If there are competitors? I don't even know tbqh.)
- jackmott 3y ago
  if the 2nd stage re entry turns out to be fundamentally unworkable, big setback. but if the rocket fails for any of 100 other reasons, no big deal
- bloggie 3y ago
  I haven't followed this specific launch in much detail, but part of why SpaceX has been so successful is they expect a certain amount of failure and don't pin the failure of the program on the failure of any one test. This allows them to iterate faster than other programs that might have less test launches and thus rely more on the success of the launches they do perform. I've heard for example that this rocket is already out-of-date and the next planned rockets already have a bunch of improvements.
- ddevault 3y ago
  It would range from unfortunate to a non-issue. The entire flight is not expected to be successful, the purpose is data gathering. The worst case scenario is that it fails on the pad and damages the launch infrastructure, which would be a huge setback to the project. If it fails anywhere else it's probably fine.
- saberdancer 3y ago
  Not a big setback at all. They would have to analyze reasons for failure and make changes. There are no serious "reusability" competitors, especially at Starship size. SpaceX is trying to iterate quickly on this rocket so they have several already assembled. Next two launches will also be fully expendable.
- yourapostasy 3y ago
  Disaster is complete demolition of the launch site, setting their schedule back many months and costing them a rumored hundreds of millions to rebuild. They've run enough tests to support reasonable confidence that won't happen. The directionality towards mass manufacturing the rockets, instrumenting to observability scale data collection to feed engineering course corrections, and resilience to setbacks is promising.
TMWNN 3y ago
>The cheapest and most popular rocket today in terms of cost per kilogram sent to low-earth-orbit is the SpaceX Falcon 9, which is estimated to cost about $2700/kg. If the Starship meets its goals, it will cost $10/kg to LEO. I've read that the cost will be $2700/kg even if Starship is completely expended; that is, no reuse. But far, far, far larger payloads, of course.

BenoitP 3y ago

$10/kg to LEO is insane

markdown 3y ago
That's the cost to SpaceX. There's no way they charge customers anywhere near that.
- MPSimmons 3y ago
  Even if they charged $100/kg it would change the world.
detuur 3y ago
It is. The Falcon 9, of which there have been hundreds of launches already, costs $60 Million per launch. And somehow Musk thinks he can make a rocket that is 10 times bigger 30 times cheaper? Wishful thinking. Best case imho is that they take the launch cost down to about 200M-ish over the next 15 years. That's a cost of $1000/kg and sounds about right to me.

checkyoursudo 3y ago

How much of a setback would disaster be? Would SpaceX keep going, or would failure leave room for competitors to take over? (If there are competitors? I don't even know tbqh.)

jackmott 3y ago
if the 2nd stage re entry turns out to be fundamentally unworkable, big setback. but if the rocket fails for any of 100 other reasons, no big deal
bloggie 3y ago
I haven't followed this specific launch in much detail, but part of why SpaceX has been so successful is they expect a certain amount of failure and don't pin the failure of the program on the failure of any one test. This allows them to iterate faster than other programs that might have less test launches and thus rely more on the success of the launches they do perform. I've heard for example that this rocket is already out-of-date and the next planned rockets already have a bunch of improvements.
ddevault 3y ago
It would range from unfortunate to a non-issue. The entire flight is not expected to be successful, the purpose is data gathering. The worst case scenario is that it fails on the pad and damages the launch infrastructure, which would be a huge setback to the project. If it fails anywhere else it's probably fine.
saberdancer 3y ago
Not a big setback at all. They would have to analyze reasons for failure and make changes. There are no serious "reusability" competitors, especially at Starship size. SpaceX is trying to iterate quickly on this rocket so they have several already assembled. Next two launches will also be fully expendable.
yourapostasy 3y ago
Disaster is complete demolition of the launch site, setting their schedule back many months and costing them a rumored hundreds of millions to rebuild. They've run enough tests to support reasonable confidence that won't happen. The directionality towards mass manufacturing the rockets, instrumenting to observability scale data collection to feed engineering course corrections, and resilience to setbacks is promising.

TMWNN 3y ago

>The cheapest and most popular rocket today in terms of cost per kilogram sent to low-earth-orbit is the SpaceX Falcon 9, which is estimated to cost about $2700/kg. If the Starship meets its goals, it will cost $10/kg to LEO. I've read that the cost will be $2700/kg even if Starship is completely expended; that is, no reuse. But far, far, far larger payloads, of course.