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by indubitable 3063 days ago
The Falcon Heavy not only lifts vastly more (it will be the most powerful rocket excepting the Saturn V - which has not been in commission since 1973), but I think understating the scale of price difference is also not really reasonable.

The Falcon Heavy is looking at a cost of around $85 million. The Delta-4 Heavy starts at $400 million. Compare price per kg and it's quite insane. For low earth orbit that's $1,332/kg for a Falcon Heavy and $13,893/kg at the low end pricing for a Delta-4 Heavy. The Falcon 9 weighs in at $2,684/kg.

Each cut in price opens up possibilities that were not there before. Make it $1/kg and that'd be rather self evident, but each price decline opens up the doors for companies and individuals who previously were only being held back by price.

1 comments

Not correct calculation, as FH may be $85M only when reusing all 3 cores, for a big payload penalty.