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They had virtually infinite budget at the time. SpaceX is much, much cheaper.
Is it though? I'm not knowledgeable on this at all, but it _seems_ like Space X is blowing up a lot more expensive equipment compared to NASA back in the space race days. Genuinely curious how it compares and how true my outsider impression is.
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Is it though? I'm not knowledgeable on this at all, but it _seems_ like Space X is blowing up a lot more expensive equipment compared to NASA back in the space race days. Genuinely curious how it compares and how true my outsider impression is.
It's not as expensive as it looks, Starship plus booster costs around 100 million. A Saturn V Apollo mission cost 185 million in 1969 which, according to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saturn_V#Cost , would now be a bit less than a billion dollars. Also, SpaceX is not building rockets, they are building a rocket factory. If they succeed they will have lowered the cost of putting stuff into space by an order of magnitu…
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It's pretty remarkable progress. Slowly but surely, they're getting it done. I predict they'll have a full working version by 2027. By 2028, they'll have regular reusable flights.
My personal estimates are similar. For anyone that followed Falcon 9 development (from the first Falcon 1 launches), it’s really similar. I remember boom after boom until one day they cracked the problem and reusable boosters became the status quo. I got tingles when the first booster landed on the drone ship, because I knew access to space had just changed in a fundamental way.
First, the time frames are way off. Development of the Falcon 9 took ~5 years (2005 to 2010). The first reused booster came much later (2017?).
Second, Starship is much more expensive for each launch attempt than Falcon 9 ever was.
Third, Starship is significantly more complicated technology-wise, being methane based. There are reasons to do this but it then requires cooling both propellants (instead of just liquid oxygen and RP-1 ie kerosene with the Falcon 9(.
Fourth, Starship has to compete with somethingg Falcon 9 never did: Falcon 9. Falcon 9 is now the most succcessful and cheapest launch platform in history. It is the reliable workhorse of the industry and relatively cheap to launch. Its reuse is proven.
Fifth, the market for Starship is unproven. We can compare it to other launch systems for heavy payloads, most notably the Falcon Heavy, which I believe has only had ~12 launches in almost a decade (compared to the 100+ Falcon 9 launches every year).
You could argue SpaceX will steer customers to Starship but there'll be other competitors (to the Falcon 9) by then.
Lastly, Starship is still so far from being human-rated. So much of the needed tech (eg refuelling in orbit) hasn't even begun testing yet. I can easily see this taking another decade at least.
Too many things don't add up, for example: SpaceX, and friendly commentators, have framed this as a highly experimental test flight. The most visible aspect of that are the heatshield test tiles on various parts of the upper stage. That kind of testing is understandable to a certain extent. But it doesn't make sense to ditch the rocket in the Indian Ocean once you've run those experiments, instead of catching it, and…
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Looks like Starship test flights are already beating that $1 billion per-launch cost (I'm seeing estimates in the $100-500 million range), and they'd like to get the marginal cost down to ~$10 million.
I'm confused -- how is it meaningful to compare the cost of Starship test flights with operational Saturn V missions?
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This is something I am finding myself wrestling with a lot right now. On the one hand I am a major space nerd and I see the value of what SpaceX is doing. Especially with it really seeming like no one is anywhere near their level. What kind of scientific advancements will be possible once this thing can be used normally and launches like this become commonplace. But at the same time it is impossible to ignore the Elo…
What if the guy who built the world’s best rocket from scratch, who popularized EVs and brought self-driving tech to the masses, who built brain computer interfaces, dug tunnels, started OpenAI and PayPal… What if he’s not an idiot? What if we should actually be listening to what this guy says and considering it? What if he has the same ability to see what nobody else can see early on in politics… As he’s shown acros…
Incredible achievement, but what is more incredible is how many people (including almost all of my friends circle) have started rooting for SpaceX to fail due to the shenanigans of its founder. I think as a culture we've lost the ability to compartmentalize. We should be able to criticize and even despise the head of a company, and at the same time celebrate when the intelligence and hard work of the countless smart…
I mostly hope that Blue Origin will be a worthy competitor. For me what this shows that the most important thing for a CEO to be successful is to have money, a vison (no matter how unrealistic or unnecessary) and a cult personality. Nothing else matters. Also it shows that with enough virtual money (I.e.: massively overblown Tesla stock) you can do just about anything.
Jeff loves measurement and control. So he replaced his experienced aerospace guy with the Alexa guy. Because the Alexa guy works the Amazon way: everything measured and tightly controlled.
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It has contracts, but development costs are borne by SpaceX.