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by augusto-moura 616 days ago
I don't think we have a number for it yet. But it will definitely be the cheapest launch system at the time of launch.

People say 200$/kg just with booster reuse, and 20$/kg with full reuse. Of course this might be too optimistic, but I truly believe we might reach under 50$ in this decade.
3 comments
quotemstr 616 days ago
Even $50 is within "going to the moon for my honeymoon" range. Wow.
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augusto-moura 616 days ago
$50 is a number for LEO (Low-earth orbit). $/kg to a Moon orbit (or flyby) might be significantly more expensive. Not only that, because it is further so it needs more fuel, but also it is a few days trip which would need a bunch more kilos in provisioning food, water and other things. So yeah, unfortunately not that cheap to have a honeyMoon in the moon (heh)

There is a lot of possibilities to make a trip to the moon cheaper though. If we make LEO that cheap, we can build a lot of infrastructure in the space that would make the tourism to moon more affordable. Like keeping a few starships always in orbit as some kind of space-hotel-metro system.

This will probably take a few more decades, though.

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Valgrim 616 days ago
Artemis by Andy Weir dwells a lot on this kind of infrastructure, but I never could understand the orbital mechanics described in the book.
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rkagerer 616 days ago
Yeah it wasn't explained well in the book, but I did some reading of third-party sources and diagrams about the Uphoff-Crouch Lunar Cycler orbit, which helped (Wikipedia and the like).
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mr_toad 615 days ago
Even if it cost 10x as much to reach the Moon it would bring the costs within range of mere multi-millionaires instead of billionaires.
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augusto-moura 612 days ago
That is true, I guess some weird multi billionaire might have a honeymoon there. We should see some other media as well, like movies perhaps, and of course p*rn
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itishappy 616 days ago
Only if you don't care about coming back!
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moffkalast 616 days ago
This might be the best time to get into cubesat development as a hobby, lol.
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jackcviers3 616 days ago
What is a good estimate of the number of times these boosters and engines will be reusable?
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