Toby Li@tobyliiiiiiiiiiSpaceX announces timeline and pricing for cargo Starship Moon and Mars missions.Reported on the company’s website, SpaceX intends to begin Moon and Mars surface cargo missions in 2028 and 2030, respectively - each at $100 million per metric ton or $100,000 per kg.
Toby Li@tobyliiiiiiiiiiIn comparison, Astrobotic lists a price of *$1.2 million per kg* to the Moon’s surface using their lunar landers.SpaceX’s Starship is greatly undercutting the average price per kg to the Moon and beyond.
Jackie®️🔑🚘@X_WalletsYes,Confirmed Back to back with other projects
I find it interesting the price is the same for both Moon and Mars.Moon actually requires a lot more tonnage of fuel to LEO (about 2-3x), because there's no atmospheric braking on the Moon.So Mars is cheaper in many respects (though managing Starships light minutes away is more difficult).
I have to wonder if that will be offered for both outbound and earthbound cargo. You could send a small rover, collect some samples and ship the samples back to Earth. There might be a market for that.
every gram is precious, every gram is great, if a gram gets wasted, accounting gets quite irate
scope, schedule, resources. Pick 2, preferably 1.
a downside of charging this much for ton is it will increase development time because ifQuoteevery gram is precious, every gram is great, if a gram gets wasted, accounting gets quite iratethen development times will increase, due to a project management axiomQuotescope, schedule, resources. Pick 2, preferably 1.While development times increase, launch costs will be dropping dramatically over time.As a program manager, I'd look at those two crossing curves and just decide to wait it out. Aka send SpaceX no money soon.SpaceX really needs to encourage the "built it fast and heavy" market, not discourage it.
Quote from: InterestedEngineer on 10/12/2025 11:48 pmI find it interesting the price is the same for both Moon and Mars.Moon actually requires a lot more tonnage of fuel to LEO (about 2-3x), because there's no atmospheric braking on the Moon.So Mars is cheaper in many respects (though managing Starships light minutes away is more difficult).Extra costs of Mars:- Deployable solar panels; Moon may work on batteries- Planetary range communication- Half-year-long termal control of fuel- Half-year-long ground controlMaybe, all of these are solved by then, so LEO fuel may dominate the difference.
Quote from: geza on 10/13/2025 05:48 amQuote from: InterestedEngineer on 10/12/2025 11:48 pmI find it interesting the price is the same for both Moon and Mars.Moon actually requires a lot more tonnage of fuel to LEO (about 2-3x), because there's no atmospheric braking on the Moon.So Mars is cheaper in many respects (though managing Starships light minutes away is more difficult).Extra costs of Mars:- Deployable solar panels; Moon may work on batteries- Planetary range communication- Half-year-long termal control of fuel- Half-year-long ground controlMaybe, all of these are solved by then, so LEO fuel may dominate the difference.Assuming everything goes to plan, the dominant cost of Mars cargo will be tying up a Starship that would otherwise be in revenue service in cislunar space for two years. So the price for Mars, absent some intracompany subsidy, ought to be the roughly the same magnitude as the expected profit the ship would have made you being employed near Earth for that span of time. I don't see how that's not a much bigger number than the more direct costs like fuel. At least as long as cislunar markets are not totally saturated by oversupply.tl;dr, it's not the distance, it's the time and the corresponding foregone revenue.
tl;dr, it's not the distance, it's the time and the corresponding foregone revenue.
Quote from: Action on 10/14/2025 02:49 pmAssuming everything goes to plan, the dominant cost of Mars cargo will be tying up a Starship that would otherwise be in revenue service in cislunar space for two years. So the price for Mars, absent some intracompany subsidy, ought to be the roughly the same magnitude as the expected profit the ship would have made you being employed near Earth for that span of time. I don't see how that's not a much bigger number than the more direct costs like fuel. At least as long as cislunar markets are not totally saturated by oversupply.tl;dr, it's not the distance, it's the time and the corresponding foregone revenue.That's true under very asymmetrical mission planning scenarios.For Mars, we talk about building a colony. Not only are the bulk of the missions cargo, but also the ships have an ongoing function on the surface, mostly as tankage but also for other component reuse, and so by default they remain there. They have more value on the surface than being lugged back to Earth.For Moon, we talk about "missions": the ships lands, and then fly off again to rendezvous with Orion. That's the highlight. There are cargo missions too, but they kind of get lost in the shuffle. There are no concrete plans for surface build-up, so the ships are not needed there.That's the difference. If someone was planning a moon colony, the landed ships would remain there too, and the comparison would be par.
Assuming everything goes to plan, the dominant cost of Mars cargo will be tying up a Starship that would otherwise be in revenue service in cislunar space for two years. So the price for Mars, absent some intracompany subsidy, ought to be the roughly the same magnitude as the expected profit the ship would have made you being employed near Earth for that span of time. I don't see how that's not a much bigger number than the more direct costs like fuel. At least as long as cislunar markets are not totally saturated by oversupply.tl;dr, it's not the distance, it's the time and the corresponding foregone revenue.
Assume for a moment that one Starship operating in cislunar space makes you $100 million in profit every two years. Then, one cost of sending it to Mars is that you don't get that profit. If you aren't charging Mars enough to make that worth your while, you're leaving an awful lot of money on the table.Put another way, the current scheme has an awful lot of money invested in Starships in transit and sitting on Mars. That money could be used other ways.
Assume for a moment that one Starship operating in cislunar space makes you $100 million in profit every two years. Then, one cost of sending it to Mars is that you don't get that profit. If you aren't charging Mars enough to make that worth your while, you're leaving an awful lot of money on the table.Put another way, the current scheme has an awful lot of money invested in Starships in transit and sitting on Mars. That money could be used other ways.An advantage of the Moon is that equipment used for transport to and from the Moon is not tied up for nearly the length of time. It's much better utlized. And to be clear, I'm not a Moon guy - I think Mars makes a lot more sense as a destination. But I think we should be honest with ourselves here. You want to minimize the capital you have tied up in transit to Mars.
You can reuse Mars ships 5-10 times if you wanted to. There is also the ability to do aggregation.
Quote from: Action on 10/14/2025 04:16 pmAssume for a moment that one Starship operating in cislunar space makes you $100 million in profit every two years. Then, one cost of sending it to Mars is that you don't get that profit. If you aren't charging Mars enough to make that worth your while, you're leaving an awful lot of money on the table.Put another way, the current scheme has an awful lot of money invested in Starships in transit and sitting on Mars. That money could be used other ways.Remember TANCH: They Are Not Coming Home. The Starships are a write-off as soon as they leave orbit.
Quote from: Robotbeat on 10/14/2025 04:59 pmYou can reuse Mars ships 5-10 times if you wanted to. There is also the ability to do aggregation."No we wouldn't mine raw materials on Mars and ship them back to Earth. Even if you had... like... crack cocaine in pre-packaged pallets, it wouldn't be economical to ship it back to Earth. It would be a fun time for the Martians! But not for the people back on Earth." -- Elon MuskReturn payload is 1-to-1 for dry mass, so as long as the ship has a lower replacement cost per gram, then economically it just makes more sense to reuse it on Mars.Plus we should in general favor disposal on Mars, where the exact same hardware has vastly greater value than if disposed of on the Earth. Buy low, sell high!
