Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

SpaceX’s monstrous, dirt-cheap Starship may transform space travel

economist.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

91–100 of 431 posts

Re: SpaceX’s monstrous, dirt-cheap Starship may transform space travel

#91

Post by russellbeattie »

I recently read "Liftoff" about the early days of SpaceX [1]. Definitely recommended if you want to get a good overview of the company and industry. To me, it provided a lot of missing context and background that is really nice to have when reading articles like this one above. Though the book ends in 2008 - after SpaceX finally put a rocket into orbit on their fourth, and what would have been final, attempt - many of the plans talked about in the book are still ongoing, like the Mars mission.

1. https://www.harpercollins.com/products/liftoff-eric-berger

Re: SpaceX’s monstrous, dirt-cheap Starship may transform space travel

#92

Post by yazaddaruvala »

arcticbull wrote: post #49
kashkhan wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

weren't shuttle flights $2B each? List price of Falcon launch is <$70MM.

Russian Roscosmos costs $35-48.5M per launch. [1] Shuttle launches were about $450M per launch, with 7 people and 50,000lbs of cargo. Came to about $10,000 per kg, vs SpaceX Falcon 9 at $27,000 [edit] and the Dragon around $9,000. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soyuz-2

In case you’re not very familiar, when dealing with launches to orbit: cost only makes sense in terms of “$ per kg per launch to ”, not “$ per launch to ”.

For the Roscosmos costs, mass to LEO seems to be $4270/kg [0].

Falcon 9 is at $1270/kg [1]. This link also has the comparison with the Space Shuttle.

[0] $35 MM / 8200kg [1] https://web.archive.org/web/20210801024432/https://ntrs.nasa...

Re: SpaceX’s monstrous, dirt-cheap Starship may transform space travel

#93

Post by Victerius »

jmyeet wrote: post #81

The real problem for Starship (IMHO) is Falcon 9. Falcon 9 is now the most reliable launch vehicle ever created. With reuse the may well be $10m per launch or even less by now and likely to continue to drop. F9 can deliver ~22t to LEO and smaller payloads to geosynchronous orbit. The payloads F9 can't deliver are quite small. What people forget is that payloads are deeply coupled to their launch vehicles. The launch…

> $10 per launch

You mean $10,000,000.00, not $10.00, right?

$10.00 launches would be amazing.

Re: SpaceX’s monstrous, dirt-cheap Starship may transform space travel

#94

Post by arcticbull »

yazaddaruvala wrote: post #92
arcticbull wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Russian Roscosmos costs $35-48.5M per launch. [1] Shuttle launches were about $450M per launch, with 7 people and 50,000lbs of cargo. Came to about $10,000 per kg, vs SpaceX Falcon 9 at $27,000 [edit] and the Dragon around $9,000. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soyuz-2

In case you’re not very familiar, when dealing with launches to orbit: cost only makes sense in terms of “$ per kg per launch to ”, not “$ per launch to ”. For the Roscosmos costs, mass to LEO seems to be $4270/kg [0]. Falcon 9 is at $1270/kg [1]. This link also has the comparison with the Space Shuttle. [0] $35 MM / 8200kg [1] https://web.archive.org/web/20210801024432/https://ntrs.nasa...

There's a difference between per-launch cost and program costs.

Re: SpaceX’s monstrous, dirt-cheap Starship may transform space travel

#95

Post by bmcniel »

jmyeet wrote: post #81

The real problem for Starship (IMHO) is Falcon 9. Falcon 9 is now the most reliable launch vehicle ever created. With reuse the may well be $10m per launch or even less by now and likely to continue to drop. F9 can deliver ~22t to LEO and smaller payloads to geosynchronous orbit. The payloads F9 can't deliver are quite small. What people forget is that payloads are deeply coupled to their launch vehicles. The launch…

It seems like the thesis is if cost per kg fall enough then the implausible becomes plausible. F9 reduced costs to make starlink possible, what will starship make possible?

Re: SpaceX’s monstrous, dirt-cheap Starship may transform space travel

#96

Post by edgyquant »

danavar wrote: post #15
kilroy123 wrote: post #6

If you're ever in the Houston area, I highly recommend going to see NASA Johnson Space Center. They have a full-size replica (?) Saturn V rocket on its side, you can see. You simply can't grasp how big these rockets are until you see it up close. It's like a tall building blasting off into space. They're humongous. I hope to one day see Starship up close in person as it takes off to space.

In Huntsville AL they have one stood up outside a museum right off the highway - it’s insane to see

Yup I’ve been to that one a bunch and always stop by there when I travel with anyone who’s never been

Re: SpaceX’s monstrous, dirt-cheap Starship may transform space travel

#97

Post by caoilte »

bumby wrote: post #83
kashkhan wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

weren't shuttle flights $2B each? List price of Falcon launch is <$70MM.

I think there's a difference in methodology here. When those numbers of the shuttle are listed, they're including all the upfront R&D spread across the life-cycle of the program. I believe the Falcon costs disregard all those as a sunk cost and only list the actual "launch" costs

yep. $1.5billion in 2010 prices per flight including r&d. 1.2 without.

which is still 1.5 billion per flight in 2021 prices. So Elon needs to get the price down to $15mil to hit his target.

5% is still pretty good tho. And it may go lower.

Re: SpaceX’s monstrous, dirt-cheap Starship may transform space travel

#98

Post by labster »

kklisura wrote: post #42

Starship can deliver 100 t payload to LEO. Does space industry really need that payload requirements? When you look at Falcon Heavy, it can deliver 68 t to LEO, but there was only one launch back in 2019.

Blue Origin can put their entire orbital stage inside the Starship and save money, just like using the post office to deliver Amazon Prime.

> Starship, says Dr Heldmann, could carry a full-sized drilling rig that could bore kilometres deep.

Or we could use the capacity to dig thermal boreholes on Mars, but I’d worry about mind worm attacks.

Re: SpaceX’s monstrous, dirt-cheap Starship may transform space travel

#99

Post by kashkhan »

bumby wrote: post #83
kashkhan wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

weren't shuttle flights $2B each? List price of Falcon launch is <$70MM.

I think there's a difference in methodology here. When those numbers of the shuttle are listed, they're including all the upfront R&D spread across the life-cycle of the program. I believe the Falcon costs disregard all those as a sunk cost and only list the actual "launch" costs

shuttle before columbia disaster was absorbing more than half ($8B) the NASA budget($16B) and doing 4-6 flights a year

Re: SpaceX’s monstrous, dirt-cheap Starship may transform space travel

#100

Post by rlt »

geocrasher wrote: post #14

The thing that's impressive to me, in addition to the sheer size of these machines, is the engines . The Raptor 2 is groundbreaking. And there's 30+ of them between both stages. It's just incredible, and there's nothing like it that's been done.

And they’re targeting building 2-4 of them per day.

https://mobile.twitter.com/elonmusk/status/14139104042465239...

Post reply on HN