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Comment by btilly | Hacker News Reader

I think it will likely cost under $10 million.

https://www.cnbc.com/2022/02/11/elon-musk-spacexs-starship-i...

Do you have a source behind your estimate that a fully reusable Starship launch is over 20x the cost of a partially reusable Falcon 9 launch?

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I certainly would not consider Musk a reliable source.

SpaceX is contracted to deliver people to the Moon surface for 2.8 billion dollars total (development + actual mission).

To do it they need around 6 launches for refueling in orbit.

The very upper limit on a single Starship launch is 0.5 billion (2.8/6).

The upper limit, with the assumption they don't lose money on the contract.

Yes and full self driving will be ready late next year. Elon musk is a liar about everything he works on. The launch cost will not reach 10 million until later into the program, with the 1 million dollar launch cost estimate being a fallacy. Launch costs for the first 5 rockets will be massive.

In other words you don't have a source other than your confidence that Musk is a liar?

Where these massive launch costs are coming from? All Starship's Raptor V2 engines COMBINED cost less than refurbishment of ONE RS-25 engine. There are four RS-25 engines on SLS.

doubters had a major goalpost moving moment the first time spacex landed a falcon 9 booster. then they had another when they landed on a barge. a much smaller one when fairings were recovered. if starship misses the cost by 5x it'll still be cheaper to launch than everything other than a recoverable falcon 9 and will completely dominate all aspects of space launch business (except non-US national security payloads).

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