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Comment by OJFord | Hacker News Reader

Possibly the most expensive thing in the world with a publicly listed price ($97M) and sales contact (sales@spacex.com)? https://www.spacex.com/media/Capabilities&Services.pdf Just find that amusingly 'accessible'.

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It's indeed kinda refreshing to see a company actually put such a high pricetag out there... and all the more frustrating that so many companies demand contact info for a "quote" when I don't need to do that to launch something into outer fucking space.

Of course nobody actually pays that.

>Of course nobody actually pays that

That's not the point.

That goes for anything sold B2B for more than a couple hundred dollars.

But still, I can immediately budget it at that price, and if the price comes down 20% in negotiations that pays for everything else that's behind schedule and over budget

Makes you wonder if this customer actually did though. If they were forced to dispose of the central booster due to the needs of the payload, that central booster must be costed in.

They paid more, something like $150M

I think "no one pays that" has more to do with "every mission is actually a negotiated contract" than "the price is inflated".

https://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2022/10/falcon-heavy-ussf-44...

Fair enough, I'd naïvely thought of it as a ceiling.

In my experience, most commercial offerings over USD$100,000 are negotiated, simply because there's enough money to do pay someone to negotiate.

Try that next time you stay in a hotel, or fly. Usually you pay more, often a lot more. But sometimes less.

Probably most SpaceX customers pay more. (Oh, you wanted it not tumbling?)

Gotta ask for the AAA discount.

Enter coupon code “CHIEFTWIT2022” during checkout.

For Falcon Heavy you are probably right (since there aren't many clients and they all have specific requests) but it is my understanding that the publically listed reusable F9 price is the one being paid by most customers.

Honestly, I think this would absolutely justify the Contact For Quote.

What's your payload? What size is it? Will it be a dedicated flight, or can we ride share with other customers?

So many questions just to do something silly like "launch something into outer fucking space". Also, nitpick, but is geosync orbit actually outer space?

Geosynchronous orbit is at 37,000km (well above ISS which iirc is at 400km), so by most definitions that is in space. Often that threshold is put as low as ~100km, when the atmosphere becomes too thin to support winged flight.

There's no definitional difference between "outer space" and just space. They're synonymous, and most commonly defined to begin at 100 km altitude. If there's any difference, it's that outer space refers to the physical region, as opposed to "space" that might refer to the mathematical and relativistic concept.

"Deep space" is another definition, which commonly means beyond lunar altitude.

Other regions of space typically use a specific descriptor - interplanetary, trans-Jovian, trans-Neptune, interstellar, extra-galactic.

> defined to begin at 100 km altitude

I guess this is probably on Earth, which makes me wonder how far up from Earth's moon do you have to go to be "in space"?

It's also defined for Mars (80 km) and Venus (250 km), with the same definition of where winged flight is possible based on atmospheric density and local gravity.

For an airless body, there's no real meaning to the definition, the surface is pretty much equivalent to space.

Winged flight is not possible in LEO but yet Starlink satellites are definitely affected by the earth's atmo

The 100 km comes from the "von Karmen line", the altitude at which the speed you'd need to be flying to generate enough lift to stay level would equal the orbital velocity.

For the moon, there is no such altitude, so space comes right down to the surface.

Fascinating, thanks! I'm not sure I would have made the connection between lift and orbital velocity.

> Honestly, I think this would absolutely justify the Contact For Quote.

Absolutely, which is exactly why it's so ridiculous that so many sales teams demand implied consent to receive their spam solely to get some kind of number for something far, far less.

Well you don't need the quote to get an idea of how feasible it would be for you to afford it. But I think you'd need a quote once you started fine-tuning your ask.

Boeing lists aircraft prices for commercial planes: https://www.boeing.com/company/about-bca/#/prices

(Although they note that the actual price may vary by configuration, so I guess it's not as "pure" of a list price compared to SpaceX).

The highest there is $442.2 million. I wonder if there are any list prices out there higher than that?

I was gonna reply with some random island for sale, as those usually are very expensive. But they don't come near the 442.2 million USD figure, most expensive I can find is 133,467,632 EUR (https://www.jamesedition.com/real_estate/ko-kaeo-thailand/pr...).

Interesting that a whole island costs the same amount or less than just one airplane.

Real estate is usually all about location, land itself is plentiful and cheap around the world, it's all the stuff required to make it livable and proximity to where people want to be that's expensive.

The planes are so expensive because they're specialized planes meant to be in the air nearly 24 hours a day - this justifies spending a huge amount of money on improving their fuel efficiency. A friend who works in large commercial aircraft once told me that the break-even point for money spent redesigning planes to be lighter was $1,000,000 in R&D spending per pound of weight saved. Older models which are typically used for intermittent cargo service can cost just $20m for a 747.

$1,000,000 per lb for R&D is steep, but at this stage in the game makes sense.

I wonder what the unit price for a break-even 1lb saving would be. Is it worth spending $20,000 to shave off a pound with expensive materials?

About $2600 per pound.

Based on this forum thread [1] the marginal cost per pound to fuel efficienciy is about "0.0155 gallons per pound per 1,000 statute miles". Over a 737's life it may fly about 50 million miles [2]. Combining facts one and two results in a fuel consumption per marginal pound of 775 gallons. Current jet fuel prices are about $3.40 per gal [3].

[1] https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/travelbuzz/712294-anyone-kno...

[2] https://www.usatoday.com/story/travel/columnist/cox/2012/11/...

[3] https://www.iata.org/en/publications/economics/fuel-monitor/

Wow, thanks for the effort put into answering a passing curiosity!

Of course any change to the aircraft has many other downstream implications (ability to source parts for repairs, lifetime of the part, maintenance requirements), but it's cool to think that for an "all else the same" replacement that the bar is still so high.

With the falling costs of advanced materials I do wonder if next gen aircraft will be substantially different.

If that’s the case, why is e.g. 10% of a 787 still using steel rather than titanium, which can be had at 11$ per kg?

The challenge is with design, certification, and manufacturing (forming and joining), not with affording the material. Plus, high strength steels can bear more stress than titanium, although they weigh more. This may be needed for certain space-constrained components.

Makes sense, thanks.

That doesn't make sense. So if I buy a top spec model and make it 400lbs lighter I can double the price?

If you could take a top spec model, cut the weight by 400lbs without effecting the crafts capability, you could certainly sell it at a premium yeah, it would be some difference between the current price and the fuel cost savings shedding 400lbs casuses over the lifetime of the aircraft. Cerium estimated $2,600 per lb over the lifetime of the craft so yeah, that's a ~$1,040,000 in value there.

A 1 lb saving saves $2,600 in fuel costs over the life of the craft.

However, an airline's break even point is a portion of that (perhaps $1,000) because the fuel costs are spread out over the life of the craft and there is an opportunity cost to spending money on the more efficient plane.

Of that $1,000, the aircraft maker will only capture a portion of the value - the airline expects to do better than break even. The airplane manufacturer may be able to charge $500 more for the aircraft.

They might hope to make 2,000 aircraft for something big like a 787 (although that number varies a lot depending on the model). That's 2,000 units times $500 = $1 million.

Aha, across all units, that makes more sense. I thought it was per unit and it off by a few orders of magnitude.

Well that's the break even price. They want to have most 1lb improvements cost them less than a million dollars.

> Older models which are typically used for intermittent cargo service can cost just $20m for a 747.

With the bulk of that being the value of the four engines - an old airframe is pretty much just scrap metal.

Because you have to manufacture a plane, and island was manufactured by someone else who wasn't paid.

Oh, they are paid. According to the contract they take various types of payment ranging from: Sunday mornings drinking bad wine, tithes all the way to lifelong celibacy and blood sacrifice.

Do they take visa? PayPal? Bitcoin?

Probably Doge

Thank you for that rabbit hole! The most expensive one is the 777-9. It's apparently the longest and widest plane ever[^1].

[^1]: https://www.cnn.com/travel/article/boeing-777x-9-first-fligh...

AWS has some expensive single clicks: https://twitter.com/QuinnyPig/status/1243319088853553152?s=2...

The mention of "competitive prices" is icing on the cake.

"Check out our deals on launching stuff into friggin' space."

I never thought I would live to see such a service marketed this way.

There's plenty of listed real estate that goes into the tens to hundreds of millions (and billions) with a contact and pricing. here's one right now: https://www.commercialcafe.com/commercial-property/us/ny/new...

Listed price, and even a phone number to call. Go ahead, make an offer ;)

It shows $99,000,000. Where do you see billions?

Only a sucker would buy this property. It'll be underwater within a decade or two...

Yea sure it will....

https://www.climatedepot.com/2022/11/01/new-york-times-clima...

You climate change terrorists crack me up.

Should have Add to Cart and Checkout using Apple Pay buttons.

PayPal, so I can try and return to sender for a refund.

CSB: I was trying to solve a problem for a client and thought Starlink may be able to help but i had no contact at Starlink nor SpaceX. So, on a whim, i emailed sales@spacex.com and told them what i was up to and the help i needed. I got a response back the next day from a Starlink lead in the state where my project was at ( client was a state government) asking how she can help. I was pretty surprised and impressed.

In similar light, SpaceX has also been positively transparent about their payload delivery ("rideshare") prices: https://www.spacex.com/rideshare/

Stock markets and bond markets have public sale offers for high double/triple digit billions /s

No sales contact, but https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_most_expensive_buildin... does enumerate nominal costs 3 orders of magnitude higher.

Maybe some of ASML's EUV lithography machines would be contenders?

Kinda nice to pay with your Amex and get flight miles in return.

You have found the reason for business credit cards (other than the credit part).

Yes but I think it’s due to competition even ISRO has their price list on the net

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