The only figure for the development cost i can find online is “more than $500 million.”
From https://www.cnbc.com/2019/02/13/spacex-falcon-heavy-rocket-o...
The only figure for the development cost i can find online is “more than $500 million.”
From https://www.cnbc.com/2019/02/13/spacex-falcon-heavy-rocket-o...
They've received around $10B[0] in funding. About 3.2B [1] in fed payment, with about $13B, in appropriated funding. I would say they've launched a number of private missions as well that made them a profit.
[0]https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/space-exploration-te... [1]https://www.fpds.gov/ezsearch/search.do?q=spacex+UEI_NAME%3A...
This is not just inflated, it’s 100% bogus - this is not a reasonable way to estimate development costs for a launch vehicle.
>Now do the cost for SLS based on the total cost to date for NASA and all contractors since inception, including the costs for Apollo and the shuttle.
But I would agree with that sentiment if you only included rocket development. It's not just the cost of that vehicle but also the total cost of the institutional knowledge to get there. Starship might cost _X_, but it's because you already developed reusability and the ability to land the boosters.
Also, the biggest difference between spaceX and nasa is spaceX is verticly integrated where NASA avoids the development of alot of manufacturing capability.