Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by CraftThatBlock 2050 days ago
Starship launch price should only be a couple millions (see the article).

<100M is _technically_ right, but very far off. Since Starship will be fully reusable, it's upfront building investment (the ~100M price-tag you are referring to), spread over the lifetime of the vehicle, plus staff/maintenance/fuel for launches.

Falcon 9 was already a +10x reduction (~~1.5B per launch -> ~70M, likely cheaper for reused boosters), and Starship will be another +10x cheaper than F9. This means Starship will be >100x cheaper than competitors (excluding small-sat rockets like the Electron)

1 comments

Where is that 10x reduction and the ~1.5B per launch from for the Falcon 9 comparison? I mean Falcon 9 certainly was cheaper than the competition even without reuse, but I'm quite sure the difference wasn't as large as you're stating there.

The Falcon 9 did disrupt the industry for sure, but you don't need a 10x price reduction for that.

You're right, I was using incorrect numbers. An Atlas V's sticker price is 110M~160M, so about 2-3x cheaper