Starship Point to Point Transport considerations

[InterestedEngineer]

If I am going to Space, I want a window and the ability to float about the cabin a bit. Particularly if this trip is once in a lifetime. The cost might be $50k or more for a 1-way ticket.

No boxed shipping container seating …

I think the idea is that if the vehicle can be made to handle a very large number of flights with minimal maintenance, there's no fundamental reason why the cost needs to be much more than a regular airplane flight. The fuel cost isn't that huge ...

Last time I checked full stack fuel was about $800,000 (and that was V1, not V4).  So about $1M for the fuel.  This is assuming SpaceX doesn't vertically integrate LOX production.

so for 100 people P2P, that's $10,000/ticket just to cover the fuel.  It'll be about $20,000/ticket to cover cost of operations, amortization, maintenance, etc - and that's best case  (that corresponds to $10/kg of cargo to LEO, pretty optimistic)

[DigitalMan]

If I am going to Space, I want a window and the ability to float about the cabin a bit. Particularly if this trip is once in a lifetime. The cost might be $50k or more for a 1-way ticket.

No boxed shipping container seating …

Gwynne had said they were aiming for business class pricing, if possible. She talked about the reasoning  that would make it possible.

Worth tracking down

[Twark_Main]

If I am going to Space, I want a window and the ability to float about the cabin a bit. Particularly if this trip is once in a lifetime. The cost might be $50k or more for a 1-way ticket.

No boxed shipping container seating …

I think the idea is that if the vehicle can be made to handle a very large number of flights with minimal maintenance, there's no fundamental reason why the cost needs to be much more than a regular airplane flight. The fuel cost isn't that huge ...

Yep, at $200m per ship+booster, 10 year life, 3 flights/day, 200 out of 250 seats on average, 3% interest, that's still only $150 per seat. Launch pads last 50 years and cost $1b at scale, hosting 3 starships (9 flights/day), so another $50/seat. Maintenance is probably under $100 but call it $200/seat pessimistically.

Fuel is about $300 with no SH, and $1200 for full stack.

Adding 20% profit, that's $875/seat for short-haul flights (no SH) and $2,000 for long-haul flights.

Not sure where $50k is coming from. Maybe early "space tourism" flights will charge that much, but at scale it doesn't need to be so expensive.

[InterestedEngineer]

Fuel is about $300 with no SH, and $1200 for full stack.

at 200 passengers you are saying that's $240k for full stack fuel.

That simply does not match the bulk price of LOX and liquid methane.   An optimistic bulk price mind you.

If I just take LNG prices in the USA we are at about $100/ton for natural gas before liquification and purification.  But if you take the spot price for landed LNG we're at $500/ton

let's call it $300/ton for landed LNG purified to be only liquid methane.

Now LOX, if you vertically integrate, you are at about $100/ton  (shipped it's about $200-$300/ton in large bulk quantities delivered by rail or pipeline).

Let's go with the $100/ton, if spacex does anything it vertically integrates, and they'll use the argon for Starlink anyways.


So, $300/ton for LCH4 and $100/ton for LOX.

so with V4 it'll be 1300t of LCH4 and 4700t of LOX for StarshipV4 full stack  (10,000t thrust, 1.5TWR, 666t of dry mass).

That's:

1300 * 300 = $390,000
4700 * 100 = $470,000

for a total of $860,000 in fuel.  That's $4,300 per passenger. And this is probably pretty optimistic numbers.

Now for an airline for international travel fuel is about 25% of the total operating costs.  That implies the operating cost for Starship will be $17,200 per passenger.   Now, maybe operating airplanes is more expensive than operating spacecraft, but somehow I doubt it.

[Vultur]

I'm fairly skeptical of P2P, but for political/logistics reasons not technical ones.

You probably don't need full stack for the vast majority of P2P flights. This scenario would be large enough of a market to justify its own slightly tank-stretched Starship variant. I don't know exactly what trajectory averaged Isp a P2P Starship should expect, though, so it's hard to be sure.

So the amount of propellant used might be more like 1500-2000 tons than 6000.

Now for an airline for international travel fuel is about 25% of the total operating costs.  That implies the operating cost for Starship will be $17,200 per passenger.   Now, maybe operating airplanes is more expensive than operating spacecraft, but somehow I doubt it.

I think theoretically the shorter flight time (more flights/day) means you can amortize the vehicle and staff salary costs over more flights/more tickets. This probably needs a single stage vehicle with really streamlined (ie likely near 100% automated) inspections.