With the grasshopper technology the cost of a flight to orbit basically is the cost of rocket fuel, which is 1% of the total cost of the flights currently going into orbit. That is 100x cost savings.
Of course no one has managed to develop a reusable launch system system so far so it is likely far more difficult than at appears at face value. The successful development of grasshopper is a low probability, high pay off event.
Fuel: $1.5 bil
Salaries: $1.2 bil
Depreciation + Maintenance: $0.5 bil (basically all airplane related expenses)
So, maintenance expenses are only 12% of the total, while fuel is 35% and salaries 28%.
If the cost of fuel in orbit launches was indeed just 1% of the total cost, then compared to air travel those launches are very inefficient and there may be a huge room for improvement.
Even my car costs significantly more than just the fuel.
>Even my car costs significantly more than just the fuel.
yes, but the cost of using your car for a drive from home to work is basically the cost of car fuel. As opposed to the cost of a full car + fuel because you decide to blow your car up once you get to destination, like we now do for rockets.
No, it isn't. Insurance, license, registration, annual inspection, tires, wear-and-tear, maintenance, depreciation... and imagine if I needed a fully-staffed mission control at my house every time I took a ride.
Reusable rockets may reduce costs, but chances are it won't be by 100x.
- the cost of fuel is 35% of the total cost.
The total cost of the rocket launch then will be 3 times its fuel cost, or 3% of the _current_ expense. That's savings of 97%. Even if the analogy is not perfect and we make numerous allowances, the potential for cost-cutting by 80-90% is not inconceivable.
Again, this is based on the two assumptions above. If they are totally off, so are these calculations.
Not really: licencing / tax, insurance, maintenance between use - all likely to be significant cost factors in any launch platform also.