Poll

When will a ticket price to LEO cost less than $5 million?

2020
2 (2.7%)
2021
2 (2.7%)
2022
9 (12.2%)
2023
3 (4.1%)
2024
10 (13.5%)
2025
18 (24.3%)
2026
3 (4.1%)
2027
5 (6.8%)
2028
6 (8.1%)
2029
0 (0%)
After 2029
16 (21.6%)

Total Members Voted: 74

Voting closed: 04/22/2018 02:54 am


Author Topic: How soon will launch prices go down?  (Read 8990 times)

Offline Political Hack Wannabe

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How soon will launch prices go down?
« on: 03/22/2018 09:39 pm »
Ok, so I am wondering people's opinion about how "stuck" launch costs are.  I acknowledge that it's not necessarily easy to disentangle the actual launch cost of a rocket (whether you want to factor in things like developmental costs, or other things).  And this gets worse for human spaceflight

However, we have a "rough" order of magnitude of a ticket to ISS - current number is around $75 M a seat.

My question is - by the end of 2030, how low do you think a ticket price for a single person to either ISS or equivalent space station/platform will cost?


Alright, based on comments, I am modifying the poll.  BTW - my request still stands to the mods, although I see someone decided it needed a time limit.  Can that be changed back, please? 

 (Also, mods, a request - please don't limit the poll time length.  I'd rather leave it)
« Last Edit: 03/27/2018 03:29 pm by Political Hack Wannabe »
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Offline speedevil

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Re: How low can launch costs go in the next ten years
« Reply #1 on: 03/22/2018 11:34 pm »
If you believe that BFS is ever safe enough to carry passengers, this pretty much inherently means you believe that it's got a probability of 1% or under of killing the passengers.

This means that the capital cost of the rocket is  under some couple of million, and it can easily carry a hundred people, leading to a cost of capital per person of some 20K.
Fuel is not meaningfull at this level, and if we believe the cost of refurbishment is 20K per passenger too, that leads to costs in the region of 40K, meaning a ticket price of 100K is hard to avoid unless you start to assume extra surcharges on the ticket.

It is plausible in the near term - 10 years - that ticket prices could hit 100K IMO.
The optimistic case is an explosive growth of BFR, driven by a very rapid ramp of P2P and Starlink, which might take it down to more like 5K than 100K.
I think as high as $5M is unlikely, even in the absence of BFR, in the slightly longer term, due to Blue, though I don't believe they are likely to have ramped by 2027.

I believe by 2027 that launch and landing prices (not counting any destination costs) will be considerably under $500K, perhaps with a slight bump for delivering you to somewhere in orbit.
My optimistic guess is $20K.
« Last Edit: 03/22/2018 11:37 pm by speedevil »

Offline Lar

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Re: How low can launch costs go in the next ten years
« Reply #2 on: 03/23/2018 01:56 am »
Your poll is ill formed, it doesn't go low enough. I voted under 5M but would have voted under 200K if that was available.

Per Speedevil's analysis.

I fixed the sense of your sign on that last choice and set the poll to end in 30 days.
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Online Coastal Ron

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Re: How low can launch costs go in the next ten years
« Reply #3 on: 03/23/2018 02:55 am »
My question is - by the end of 2030, how low do you think a ticket price for a single person to either ISS or equivalent space station/platform will cost?

Elon Musk said back in 2016 that a round-trip price to Mars would be about $200,000, and that it could ultimately drop to $100,000. And since the ISS is far closer than Mars, that means the prices to LEO should be lower than the prices for Mars.

So based on that I agree with Lar, that the poll range does not go low enough.
If we don't continuously lower the cost to access space, how are we ever going to afford to expand humanity out into space?

Offline speedevil

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Re: How low can launch costs go in the next ten years
« Reply #4 on: 03/23/2018 03:05 am »
...
And since the ISS is far closer than Mars, that means the prices to LEO should be lower than the prices for Mars.
As context, the price given for the passenger service - long-haul - is around $1000. (Plus or minus 50%)

This is basically a fully orbital trajectory, not easier in any way than a flight to a spacestation.
There may be some extra delay in loading and offloading passengers and docking which make it a little more expensive as the vehicle can't fly so often.

So, that extra delay makes the vehicle cost a little more to operate - but only a little.

In ten years - well - it would surprise me greatly that it had happened 5 years before the time I believe it may have happened, but not hugely otherwise.



Offline Political Hack Wannabe

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Re: Modified the polll - How soon will launch prices go down?
« Reply #5 on: 03/23/2018 02:57 pm »
Ok, so I substantially modified the poll, please revote
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Online Eric Hedman

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Re: Modified the polll - How soon will launch prices go down?
« Reply #6 on: 03/23/2018 03:10 pm »
I'm not as optimistic prices will come down that fast.   I don't think it will be before 2030 so I don't have any choice to vote.

This is not an established market with many competitive players that gradually bring down prices.
Real reductions will be relatively abrupt and happen as soon as new systems and new capabilities come online.
This currently means when BFR and New Glenn come online and can launch tourists reliably.
No other system in development can bring the cost per tourist to LEO below 5M$.
Also I suspect both those system aim to launch much more than 6-7 people per flight so, especially for BFR, the ticket price will easily be way less than 5 M$, relatively soon.

So the poll is really asking: when do you think BFR and/or New Glenn will be launching tourists?

My guess is that 2024-25 is the planned timeline for both systems. And for New Glenn it will probably be very hard to compete, especially if they won't develop a reusable 2nd stage.
« Last Edit: 03/23/2018 03:48 pm by AbuSimbel »
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Offline Lar

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Re: Modified the polll - How soon will launch prices go down?
« Reply #8 on: 03/23/2018 03:58 pm »
Why do you want this poll open forever? It's not how we normally do things but I can be persuaded if you're actually persuasive.  Did you reset all the votes when you competely changed the sense of the poll? Kind of wastes the time of those who voted initially.  I think your initial question of 'what is the predicted ticket price at time X" is an interesting one and substantially different than  your current question of "when does the ticket price get to price Y or less" . Better to have just started a new poll instead of what you did I think.

Please modify your thread title to remove the "modified the poll" from it, that is completely irrelevant, or will be next week.
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Offline john smith 19

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Re: How low can launch costs go in the next ten years
« Reply #9 on: 03/23/2018 04:21 pm »
If you believe that BFS is ever safe enough to carry passengers, this pretty much inherently means you believe that it's got a probability of 1% or under of killing the passengers.
The shuttle flew 135 times. It catastrophically failed twice and killed 14 people in the process.

That's what a 1.48% flight failure rate looks like. Much like an ELV flight failure rate.

Flight safety will have to rise a lot

Obviously a fully reusable TSTO should do better, and I think we all expect it will do better.
But that loss rate has to fall order of magnitude to open up space access. HSF is not just a death trap by 21st century flying standards I think it's a death trap by the standards of the 1920's as well.  :(

But to speak to the thread title "When will it cost <$5m to get to LEO for a spaceflight participant?"
Simple. When there is competition to do so.
Then we will start to see prices begin to fall.
« Last Edit: 03/23/2018 04:26 pm by john smith 19 »
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Offline Political Hack Wannabe

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Re: Modified the polll - How soon will launch prices go down?
« Reply #10 on: 03/23/2018 04:51 pm »
This is not an established market with many competitive players that gradually bring down prices.
Real reductions will be relatively abrupt and happen as soon as new systems and new capabilities come online.
This currently means when BFR and New Glenn come online and can launch tourists reliably.
No other system in development can bring the cost per tourist to LEO below 5M$.

Actually, that assumes that the only vehicles in development that fit this category are the BFR and New Glenn.  And that isn't true.  I will say, they are the only ones that are PUBLICLY known, but there are other options

So, it's not dependent upon either BFR or New Glenn
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Offline Political Hack Wannabe

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Re: How low can launch costs go in the next ten years
« Reply #11 on: 03/23/2018 05:01 pm »

Bypassing the issue of safety, because I agree with your major points on it. 

But to speak to the thread title "When will it cost <$5m to get to LEO for a spaceflight participant?"
Simple. When there is competition to do so.
Then we will start to see prices begin to fall.

I accept your point of that is a requirement for prices to come down.  What is your timeframe for that happening? 
It's not democrats vs republicans, it's reality vs innumerate space cadet fantasy.

Offline speedevil

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Re: Modified the polll - How soon will launch prices go down?
« Reply #12 on: 03/23/2018 05:05 pm »
No other system in development can bring the cost per tourist to LEO below 5M$.

I question this somewhat.
In principle, FH, with an oversized dragon-like commercial capsule could get to $5M.
This would 'only' require man-rating of FH and manufacture of such a capsule.

This is extraordinarily unlikely to happen, but you can get short LEO flights barely below $5M if you put up 15 or so people in a cramped capsule, and a small expandable beam-like habitat.

It doesn't hard require BFR or other fully reusable vehicles, but would require you to be able to book quite a few flights fully to pay it off.
500K would require next generation launchers.

Offline Political Hack Wannabe

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Re: Modified the polll - How soon will launch prices go down?
« Reply #13 on: 03/23/2018 05:08 pm »
I think your initial question of 'what is the predicted ticket price at time X" is an interesting one and substantially different than  your current question of "when does the ticket price get to price Y or less" .

They are different.  There is a specific question I am trying to get to, but I couldn't come up with an easy way to articulate it in a format that would work with with the poll option.  The specific issue/question is when do we expect to see a major price reduction in launch costs.  The problem is that, as I turned this around in my head, I struggled with wording that works with the poll option.  So, I initially decided to pick a date, and see what level people thought it would be at that date.  After seeing some of the responses, I am realizing that writing it that way didn't get to my question.  So, I tried it again, with the new question. 

A big part of this is that figuring the right metric for launch costs isn't easy - People have tried price per pound, but that misses the mark because we run into the issue that larger vehicles do lower the price per pound, but their total cost may be substantially more.  And for things like SLS/Shuttle, what part of the infrastructure and past costs do you have to also amortize in? 

Anyway, that is why I changed the question
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Offline mme

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Re: Modified the polll - How soon will launch prices go down?
« Reply #14 on: 03/23/2018 05:13 pm »
I voted 2024 which I think is optimistic but possible. But how about a "Never" option? I know after 2029 sort of fits the bill but I'm pretty sure that their are people on this forum that think low cost access to space is impossible.

@Lar Or does adding Never reset or otherwise mess up the poll?
Space is not Highlander.  There can, and will, be more than one.

This is not an established market with many competitive players that gradually bring down prices.
Real reductions will be relatively abrupt and happen as soon as new systems and new capabilities come online.
This currently means when BFR and New Glenn come online and can launch tourists reliably.
No other system in development can bring the cost per tourist to LEO below 5M$.

Actually, that assumes that the only vehicles in development that fit this category are the BFR and New Glenn.  And that isn't true.  I will say, they are the only ones that are PUBLICLY known, but there are other options

So, it's not dependent upon either BFR or New Glenn

<5M$ per person means you have to launch the rocket + the capsule to orbit and back for 30M$ if it's a traditional system with a 6-7 person crew. To achieve this operational reusability is required. The other (and even more cost efficient) way is to develop much bigger human rated capsules with low cost reusable HLVs capable of launching them. I fail to see any organization in the world capable of and willing to offer those capabilities a part from SX and BO.
Which other options are you thinking about?

No other system in development can bring the cost per tourist to LEO below 5M$.

I question this somewhat.
In principle, FH, with an oversized dragon-like commercial capsule could get to $5M.
This would 'only' require man-rating of FH and manufacture of such a capsule.


To me this isn't a viable possibility in the real world, because SpaceX would never develop this, even if they were struggling with BFR, as it would have very high costs and limited (and very risky) applications. In the end it all comes to when/if New Glenn or BFR (or similarly capable vehicles that aren't currently planned) get to fly.
 But given how those two are the only in active development they're also overwhelmingly more likely to achieve the <5M$ ticket price target in this poll's timeframe than any other theoretical alternative.

Also a Dragon 2 + F9 Commercial crew launch costs several hundred M$, IMO it would be more technically challenging to build a capsule that's way bigger than D2, way more reusable than D2 to be cost effective and flyable on FH than to just build the BFR (or change its design if it turns out to be too challenging).
« Last Edit: 03/23/2018 05:25 pm by AbuSimbel »
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Offline speedevil

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Re: Modified the polll - How soon will launch prices go down?
« Reply #16 on: 03/23/2018 05:41 pm »
Also a Dragon 2 + F9 Commercial crew launch costs several hundred M$, IMO it would be more technically challenging to build a capsule that's way bigger than D2, way more reusable than D2 to be cost effective and flyable on FH than to just build the BFR (or change its design if it turns out to be too challenging).

In principle a half billion dev costs, and ten million per flight capsule refurb could pay back in times investors have been convinced to invest in in the past, certainly someone with a lot of money could bankroll it.

You would have to be barking mad to do this.

The margins for BFR are so enormously better, and your 'capsule' development for tourists would pretty much only involve interior designers.

Online rockets4life97

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Re: Modified the polll - How soon will launch prices go down?
« Reply #17 on: 03/23/2018 06:13 pm »
I think SpaceX could do under 5 million with Falcon 9 and Dragon 2 reuse. May not happen, but I think that architecture is sufficient.

I think SpaceX could do under 5 million with Falcon 9 and Dragon 2 reuse. May not happen, but I think that architecture is sufficient.
Even without propulsive landing?
In this NASA document they estimate 300M$ of recurring costs per Dragon 2 (excluding LV costs) for commercial crew (a full CC mission would be more than 400M$)... I know that CC costs are inflated but going from 300M$ for the capsule + launch costs to 30M$ per mission is a giant leap. And even if launch costs get down with partial reuse I don't see Dragon 2 recurring costs going from 300M$ to <10M$, especially without propulsive landing (which has been ruled out).
« Last Edit: 03/23/2018 07:46 pm by AbuSimbel »
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Offline Political Hack Wannabe

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Re: Modified the polll - How soon will launch prices go down?
« Reply #19 on: 03/23/2018 07:56 pm »
This is not an established market with many competitive players that gradually bring down prices.
Real reductions will be relatively abrupt and happen as soon as new systems and new capabilities come online.
This currently means when BFR and New Glenn come online and can launch tourists reliably.
No other system in development can bring the cost per tourist to LEO below 5M$.

Actually, that assumes that the only vehicles in development that fit this category are the BFR and New Glenn.  And that isn't true.  I will say, they are the only ones that are PUBLICLY known, but there are other options

So, it's not dependent upon either BFR or New Glenn

<5M$ per person means you have to launch the rocket + the capsule to orbit and back for 30M$ if it's a traditional system with a 6-7 person crew. To achieve this operational reusability is required. The other (and even more cost efficient) way is to develop much bigger human rated capsules with low cost reusable HLVs capable of launching them. I fail to see any organization in the world capable of and willing to offer those capabilities a part from SX and BO.
Which other options are you thinking about?
The ones I know of are not public, unfortunately.  But there are others working on low priced launch
It's not democrats vs republicans, it's reality vs innumerate space cadet fantasy.

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