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Comment by kemotep

12 hours ago

It’s hard to estimate what Starship’s actual costs will be when it isn’t fully operational. I am finding estimates of $100 to $200 per kilogram and even as low as $10 per kilogram.

Let’s say the costs in 5 years do get as low as $15 per kilogram or about 2 orders of magnitude improvement in launch prices. That means a 200-ton payload Starship would cost $3,000 to launch.

Do you honestly believe that? The world’s largest rocket cost a total of $3,000 to launch?

> Let’s say the costs in 5 years do get as low as $15 per kilogram or about 2 orders of magnitude improvement in launch prices. That means a 200-ton payload Starship would cost $3,000 to launch. Do you honestly believe that? The world’s largest rocket cost a total of $3,000 to launch?

You have missed three zeroes in this calculation ;)

15 per kg for a 200-ton payload is about 3 million$. That seems achievable, given that propellant costs are about 1-1.5 million.

  • Ah yeah. 200 tons is 200,000 kilograms. Definitely way off there. That is an incredulous number.