| If a single mission to mars cost $100b, then I would agree with the article that it would probably not be worth it. SpaceX is focused on reducing the cost, and no matter what you think of Elon, you have to agree that spacex focus on reusability in the falcon 9 has reduced their cost of access to space The problem is that reducing spacex’s cost doesn’t reduce the customer’s cost… until there are competitors that can push the price down. The focus on starship ultimately will reduce costs an order of magnitude again, and will permit vast payloads to mars. Why does this matter? Because much of the cost of engineering of space missions is in custom making things to be light, power efficient and reliable. If you can take more mass into space for less cost, you can add more solar panels into your design, make things more rugged, use off-the-shelf materials and you can double or triple the quantity for redundancy. Not only the launch costs go down, but all the associated engineering. |
SpaceX launches are way cheaper than competitors already. More competition would drive costs further down but it very much already exists.
A SpaceX launch costs 5% per kg of what a space shuttle launch cost. A 95% discount is pretty far away from “doesn’t reduce customers cost”.