Starship capacity is 150 (reusable) to 250-300 (non-reusable).
Saturn V non-reusable capacity was like 140 metric tons or so.
Saturn V cost in today’s dollars roughly $1.5bn per launch. Current Falcon heavy launch from SpaceX is in the $20mm cost (to SX) range, for 64 metric tons. So that’s 1,500:40 = slightly less than 40x cost improvement over Saturn V.
Starship’s target costs would be $10mm per reusable launch or roughly another 4x cost improvement over Falcon Heavy.
Also, the SX team is huge, including some critical operators like Gwynne Shotwell, it’s not just Elon driving this 160:1 improvement in lift and cost capacity.
If Starship could meet the payload goals with their V2, they would have retired Falcon 9 already.
>Starship capacity is 150 (reusable) to 250-300 (non-reusable).
Those are aspirational numbers. V1 was supposed to have 50 tons and the actual payload was 0 tons. The confirmed V2 payload was 35 tons (optimistic). V3 has a payload closer to 50 tons than 150 tons.
Starship capacity is 150 (reusable) to 250-300 (non-reusable).
Saturn V non-reusable capacity was like 140 metric tons or so.
Saturn V cost in today’s dollars roughly $1.5bn per launch. Current Falcon heavy launch from SpaceX is in the $20mm cost (to SX) range, for 64 metric tons. So that’s 1,500:40 = slightly less than 40x cost improvement over Saturn V.
Starship’s target costs would be $10mm per reusable launch or roughly another 4x cost improvement over Falcon Heavy.
Also, the SX team is huge, including some critical operators like Gwynne Shotwell, it’s not just Elon driving this 160:1 improvement in lift and cost capacity.