[MichaelZuo]

Right, the projected rate is effectively the super-bulk discounted rate if you buy 10 launches worth of cargo at once and actually fill it to max capacity whenever a launch window is open. I don’t think the individual flight rate would be anywhere close to $50/kg for the vast majority of customers.

The more relevant number is the all-in immediate price per launch, the rate where one could simply wire the money and SpaceX would launch next week, divided by the actual thing(s) launched, which will weigh some intermediate amount. And compare that to the same for the other rockets.

[CrazyStat]

Nobody does launches on a week's notice.

[MichaelZuo]

Right, in practice prices in the launch industry are not ‘prices’ as a consumer would understand them because any quote comes with certain contractual restrictive covenants, agreements, timelines, etc., that really are more akin to home buying than a typical commodity priced in per kg terms.

For order of magnitude comparisons we can ignore all that, for finer grained comparisons it really is comparing apples and oranges.

In the ideal future world launches should be done without the need for secret contracts, something like the private jet industry where planes can chartered, almost at the push of a button, at short notice.

[valuearb]

Soon we won’t remember when SpaceX wasn’t launching every week.

[CrazyStat]

Launching every week is still very different from launching on a week's notice.