NASASpaceFlight.com Forum
SpaceX Vehicles and Missions => SpaceX Starship Program => Topic started by: Lar on 09/16/2019 09:37 pm
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A recent thread started with the premise "What if Starship is unreasonably cheap" ... but people forgot that when posting in "what if" threads, one has to assume the premise... some folks started arguing against the case
See https://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=49071
This thread has been carved out to allow that debate to continue without taking the "what if" thread off focus.
NOTE: the header post used to be something else, don't worry about the date being earlier than the thread these posts came from
NOTE2: If you see some I missed, or see some here I shouldn't have moved, PM me
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Surely SH/SS should at least cost more or less what a F9 costs to build. After all, it uses more material and a lot more engines.
The paradigm shift of SS has always relied on its full reusability. Not on its per unit construction cost.
I reckon ballpark $50-$100m per SH/SS stack remains the realistic target. But at 150 tons to LEO the mid range cost estimate of $75m still means a very cheap $500/kg to orbit. For a FULLY EXPENDABLE launch.
This is compared to what, $10,000/kg for SLS? Or is that $20,000/kg? I can’t keep track anymore.
So that’s a factor of at least 20 times cheaper. Without any reuse.
Once it is reused 10 times, even with moderate refurbishment after each launch, the cost drops to maybe $100/kg. That is just insane. So a paradigm shift anyway you look at it.
But costs of $7m per SS are taking things too far, and appears unrealistic. And we don’t even need such fantastical numbers. $100/kg to LEO beats a space elevator for cost, and opens up the solar system to mankind.
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To me, costs could decrease by using roll steel and having only one vertical weld per ring. Less welding, less welders. Eventually having a large building like the VAB with all building inside to minimize weather problems such as rain and wind, steady building could improve output and maybe save time also. Having pre-cut nose pieces would minimize re-dos and make for quicker welding also. Many things could improve speed of building with less labor. However, the sunk costs of a huge multi-million dollar building would increase $/kg. Horizontal construction in a horizontal building might be even cheaper.
Good thoughts. For something as large and rare as SS/SH I am not convinced that having a manufacturing facility with automation and robotic welding, etc would actually be that cost effective - simply because it is hard to imagine them reaching the production volume necessary to really justify the infrastructure cost and additional tooling required. I do think it would make sense to automate portions of the production, even without a new manufacturing facility.
For example:
A machine that can bend the single-sheet ring and complete the weld rapidly that could pump out rings very quickly (They might already have this - it is unclear how automated the new single-weld ring process is in Cocoa).
A robot that could to the circumference welds between the rings in a stack rapidly and perhaps validate/QC the welds in real time.
Presses to cut/bend the various pieces of a bulkhead and/or nosecone.
General incorporation of lean manufacturing principles that are being undoubtedly developed as these two builds progress. Getting components or modules finished and QC'd right before they need to be combined with another module or component so there is minimal waiting time (e.g. can't complete Boca Chica stack until the nosecone is repaired). Staging materials to minimize travel or work site congestion.
I am really interested to see what the "final" SS/SH manufacturing process looks like. I think it will blow minds how quickly one of these can be put together once all the kinks have been worked out and processes validated.
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Elon Musk ✓ @elonmusk
This will sound implausible, but I think there’s a path to build Starship / Super Heavy for less than Falcon 9
https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1094793664809689089
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But costs of $7m per SS are taking things too far, and appears unrealistic. And we don’t even need such fantastical numbers. $100/kg to LEO beats a space elevator for cost, and opens up the solar system to mankind.
Agreed, $7M is too low. At least at this point in development. The unseen engineering and business costs are likely more than the materials and labor at this point.
I wouldn't even guess what the cost to develop and install a heatshield the size of SS is going to cost.
They need a better facility, ability to work indoors and out of the elements.
There are easier ways to build up and weld the components. This is fun to watch out in the open and I suspect its being done for cost and so that the world can see. (Free publicity)
One thing worth considering though, is that if they can build a SS for some lower number of millions, that it maybe worth building an expendable version with a reduced number of Raptors and over all mass.
The next couple of years are going to be very interesting.
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Elon Musk ✓ @elonmusk
This will sound implausible, but I think there’s a path to build Starship / Super Heavy for less than Falcon 9
https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1094793664809689089
I am very aware of that quote, and in fact had it in mind when formulating my post above. To me that puts the optimistic end state manufacturing cost target of SS/SH at F9’s equivalent cost.
That is the benchmark he is chasing. Not F1’s cost. Beating F9 would be the massive end state stretch goal being pursued. And that would be amazing, considering it has 6 times the payload capacity and is a fully reusable vehicle.
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To me that puts the optimistic end state manufacturing cost target of SS/SH at F9’s equivalent cost.
That is the benchmark he is chasing.
Don't think he is chasing any benchmark of the sort. The cost to manufacture this rocket will be as close to zero as possible as soon as possible.
Musk has had an epiphany regarding manufacturing over the last year-and-a-half. It started with tents. Now it often doesn't even include tents.
This process was hard-won. It nearly broke him.
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It is impossible for starship to be so cheap. Impossible to be cheaper than Falcon9.
Are you joking here?
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It is impossible for starship to be so cheap. Impossible to be cheaper than Falcon9.
Are you joking here?
The consensus is that it is very FAR from Impossible. We're all a long way down the path of discussions that have raised that possibility. You might want to review if not already familiar.
The differential manufacturing processes and materials make it eminently possible. Probable? Who knows?
edit for spelling
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It is impossible for starship to be so cheap. Impossible to be cheaper than Falcon9.
Are you joking here?
The consensus is that it is very FAR from Impossible. We're all a long way down the path of discussions that have raised that possibilities. You might want to review if not already familiar.
The differential manufacturing processes and materials make it eminently possible. Probable? Who knows?
It's not a consensus. There is the assertion by Elon Musk that they have a way to do it, but it's not safe to say that a majority of people believe that there is a path to it, let alone the idea that they've already done so.
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There is no way a raptor engine could be cheaper than a Merlin. If you can do Raptor very cheap the same can be done for making a Merlin.
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Several reasons it may be cheaper:
1. Raptor was designed to be reused many times.
2. Methane is a clean burning fuel that doesn't coke like kerosene can.
3. They are using off the shelf stainless steel. Far less expensive than composite or aluminum.
4. Stainless steel can take a lot more heat on re-entry than composite or aluminum thus safer and less heat shielding required.
5. Many of the parts for Raptor are 3D printed parts.
There may be many more.
The $/kg delivered to orbit is what is lower in cost or as low as F9. Yes it is a larger rocket and may cost more than a F9, but 100-150 tons to orbit reusable is a lot more than 10-15 tons to orbit reusable. EM said that F9 would have to be re-conditioned after 10 flights. Starship is supposed to be 100 flights or more. Lower long run costs.
The Merlin costs about $1 million each. Raptor is to cost about $2 million each at almost 2-1/2 times the thrust. Even at 2 times the thrust, the cost is the same for $/kg delivered to orbit.
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The consensus is that it is very FAR from Impossible. We're all a long way down the path of discussions that have raised that possibilities. You might want to review if not already familiar.
The differential manufacturing processes and materials make it eminently possible. Probable? Who knows?
It's not a consensus. There is the assertion by Elon Musk that they have a way to do it, but it's not safe to say that a majority of people believe that there is a path to it, let alone the idea that they've already done so.
I stand by what I said (depending upon how you define "very FAR" w.r.t. Impossible. Since I'm depending on my defintion, I'm on firm ground).
Elon didn't say that "have a way". No one said anything about an "idea they've already done so" (not even sure what that means).
Also, I have the likely imprecision of pochimax's declaration (SS) vs. Elon's implausible sounding conjecture (SS/SH).
What's not safe to say is that there is a consensus it's impossible, or effectively impossible.
Here are examples of the point in graph form:
Graph #1: Consensus Impossible or Effectively Impossible (including close to)
Graph #2: Far from Impossible
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If SS/SH is so incredible cheap to build it will be because it will be incredible easy to made. In that case it will be very easy to copy, everywhere in the world.
Any concept which involves 7000 people working on it or extraordinary knowledge of doing it, implies much more costs and that it will be not-so-extraordinary cheap to made.
You can' t have both things. SS can' t be both unreasonable cheap and exclusive.
In case you think about reducing costs because of lots of reusing, you have to explain what are this merits and again apply the same reasoning. If its design is so good it lets a very cheap operation why not everybody out there will not copy the same design and the way to operate it.
Cheap = easy.
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If SS/SH is so incredible cheap to build it will be because it will be incredible easy to made. In that case it will be very easy to copy, everywhere in the world.
Cheap = easy.
You keep missing that it's 'easy' for SpaceX but it's not for anyone following. Many companies could replicate the cheap and mature part of building the steel structures. What they can't duplicate easily or cheaply is the years invested in vertical landing, engine development and operating reusable boosters.
Blue's the exception, but development for them is all about New Glenn for the next couple of years. We don't know if their next vehicle will use lessons learned from Starship.
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If SS/SH is so incredible cheap to build it will be because it will be incredible easy to made. In that case it will be very easy to copy, everywhere in the world.
Cheap = easy.
You keep missing that it's 'easy' for SpaceX but it's not for anyone following. Many companies could replicate the cheap and mature part of building the steel structures. What they can't duplicate easily or cheaply is the years invested in vertical landing, engine development and operating reusable boosters.
Blue's the exception, but development for them is all about New Glenn for the next couple of years. We don't know if their next vehicle will use lessons learned from Starship.
Several organizations have demonstrated small scale take off and landing using engine vectoring. OK these are far from orbital, but TVC of the engine is not a big problem .... maybe the hyper-sonic retro-propulsion is.
However the knowledge that it works, and of the visible technologies is a big leg up!
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If SS/SH is so incredible cheap to build it will be because it will be incredible easy to made. In that case it will be very easy to copy, everywhere in the world.
Cheap = easy.
You keep missing that it's 'easy' for SpaceX but it's not for anyone following. Many companies could replicate the cheap and mature part of building the steel structures. What they can't duplicate easily or cheaply is the years invested in vertical landing, engine development and operating reusable boosters.
Blue's the exception, but development for them is all about New Glenn for the next couple of years. We don't know if their next vehicle will use lessons learned from Starship.
Several organizations have demonstrated small scale take off and landing using engine vectoring. OK these are far from orbital, but TVC of the engine is not a big problem .... maybe the hyper-sonic retro-propulsion is.
However the knowledge that it works, and of the visible technologies is a big leg up!
I ignored them for the sake of simplicity. Those organisations demonstrating landing are very far from having orbital engines, let alone orbital vehicles. They'd need an Uncle Bezos cash injection to transition. It would still take them years to be flying before they could start cheap production.
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No. Easy = cheap. Complex or difficult = expensive.
If only your organization can do it, it won' t be cheap to do it, because you need an organization to achieve the goal. It means hugh costs.
The main reason not everybody is copying vertical landing is for the complex and costly global architecture of implementing a rocket. If the rocket and engines are now so cheap, everybody will attempt to do vertical landing experiments.
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You can't have a cheap and difficult to made engine.
If the engine is $200k per unit that means it will be an incredible easy-to-made rocket engine.
Again, it can't be both cheap and rocket-science.
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It may be "cheap" and "easy" to copy the rocket body. (Lets ignore the GNC and computing.)
But despite the designs on NSF showing schematics of Raptor, re-producing such engines without engineering details etc etc etc would be difficult, time consuming and expensive. So the engines are a significant hurdle. Clearly other engines could be used, and if the organization was not focused on Mars, then Methane might not be their choice. However now the rocket is no longer a copy of Starship ....
I would argue that reproducing raptor is hard.
If you are thinking solely of cost of launch vehicle, and have seen a nice shiny stainless steel vehicle get to orbit with a reusable booster stage, you may reasonably consider what happens if you go even simpler.
As a silly example, consider Black Arrow - H2O2/Kerosene from the 70s - Gamma 8 - ISP 260, 20 tons, 70:1 thrust ratio.
If you replace raptors with Gamma 8s in SS, you get something that can barely make orbit - where in the same condition SS (reusable) can launch 150 tons. (yes, you need 20-50 of them).
Now consider three stage, ~8000 tons liftoff mass, and you can pretty much do 150 tons payload, even with 1970s peroxide engines.
Peroxide is an extreme case, as it alone costs $10M for the amount needed for a launch, but it is sort-of-plausible to imagine a very low tech approach like this hitting - if not SS costs - F9 current prices - if the right lessons are learned - for a 150 ton to orbit class launcher.
Picking the right lessons from SS is key.
'It must be methalox' is not the right lesson.
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You can't have a cheap and difficult to made engine.
If the engine is $200k per unit that means it will be an incredible easy-to-made rocket engine.
Again, it can't be both cheap and rocket-science.
You can certainly have an engine that is cheap for the developer (SpaceX) to mass produce, and difficult and therefore expensive for anyone else to (make unlicensed) copy.
SpaceX's brilliant propulsion specialists have put years of work into that engine, and SX has invested hundreds of millions of dollars. SX has research facilities, and a mature testing site, as well as massive orbital success with Merlin.
I believe their attitude is that they don't sell their engines. ITAR also restricts this technology.
An example of both cheap and rocket science is CPU's or hard drives. These are both amazing feats of engineering, but can be sold cheaply because of market volume. The success of the market leaders depends on massive R&D and is maintained by commercial confidentiality, proprietary information of the product and processes involved, and the large cost of FAB plants etc.
For Raptor it would be similar; the expense would be re-doing much of SX's development... involving new alloys! a testing site! etc. And brilliant engineers. Clearly if engineering details are available, through licensing, espionage, etc then there could be short cuts.
And the low price for Raptor is technically incorrect right now, as IMO it is a PROJECTED MARGINAL cost per engine. Right now there is the investment in R&D to amortise. I think we are all ignoring this. Also the high number needed will bring the price down due to production line style assembly.
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You can't mass production a rocket engine. Even one thousand engines is not mass production.
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You can't mass production a rocket engine. Even one thousand engines is not mass production.
You keep speaking in absolutes. As we've seen with SpaceX in particular, that is not a wise approach. How many "No one can do X" statements have we seen people make, only to be utterly wrong (landing an orbital booster, reusing a booster, getting customers to accept the risk, mass-produce satellites, build a flying water tower, etc.)?
Elon's stated goal for production capacity for Raptor is on the order of ~500 (roughly 2 per day) per year at a cost average eventually around $200K per engine. While that my not fit "mass production" in your definition, it sure is compared to any other launch provider or rocket engine manufacturer. At that price, it's an order of magnitude or two below what others are capable of.
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With sufficiently high volumes, prices can plummet - Example from ~20 years ago for an optical component:
Me to another Company: How much are these?
Company: $8000
Me to Company: How much for quantity?
Company: I might be able to $3000-5000
Me: I don't think you understand what I mean by quantity - how much for 500,000 per year?
Company: Gasp, pause, I will come back to you tomorrow.
Next Day: $12 each.
(Somebody else came in at $8)
What does this mean - $8000 it was assembled in the lab, $3000-5000 it was a small batch, $12 a production line
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With sufficiently high volumes, prices can plummet - Example from ~20 years ago for an optical component:
Me to another Company: How much are these?
Company: $8000
Me to Company: How much for quantity?
Company: I might be able to $3000-5000
Me: I don't think you understand what I mean by quantity - how much for 500,000 per year?
Company: Gasp, pause, I will come back to you tomorrow.
Next Day: $12 each.
(Somebody else came in at $8)
What does this mean - $8000 it was assembled in the lab, $3000-5000 it was a small batch, $12 a production line
LOL, love it!
Similar story from similar era.
Q: How much is a 1k x 1k CCD?
A: $15,000 each, Mil Spec.
Q: What's Mil Spec?
A: Zero defective pixels.
Q: Oh well, we can accept 1 or 2 dead pixels. How much then?
A: Hmm, you'd take them with one or two defects?
Q: Yes.
A: Well our scrap rate is about 95%, and 95% of the scrap has 1 or 2 dead pixels. You want those?
Q: Sure.
A: How does $150/each sound?
Ended up buying scrap. Worked fine for us.
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You can't mass production a rocket engine. Even one thousand engines is not mass production.
Stop splitting semantic hairs where it's not accretive. For the purpose of low marginal cost rocket engine, it is mass production.
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You can't have a cheap and difficult to made engine.
If the engine is $200k per unit that means it will be an incredible easy-to-made rocket engine.
Again, it can't be both cheap and rocket-science.
I don't entirely agree with the caveats of other arguments - SpaceX's engines are cheap because they are designed to be cheap to manufacture, and that obviously comes with development costs which are clearly not factored into this "$200k" number. But I definitely disagree that low cost implies lack of complexity. 3D printing is a great example. Many components that are 3D printed in aerospace are orders of magnitude more complex than standard parts, but considerably cheaper for the same functionality. Many of the most advanced engines today have 3D printed components that perform better, cost less and are much more complex due to internal geometry than older designs (GE already does this in their modern jet engines, for example).
Smartphones have considerably higher component count than rocket engines (higher complexity), but are less expensive. It's because the parts have much lower requirements, and are produced in much higher volume, and is just generally much lighter. All I'm pointing out here is that complexity (in many dimensions) does not necessarily meaningfully correspond to cost. In fact, I'd go so far to say that companies that assume complexity must correspond to cost tend to eventually be outcompeted by companies that do not make the same assumption. I recommend looking up "disruptive innovation." We're talking about orbital launch systems right now, but there are many, many examples of companies in other industries have gone bankrupt in the past thinking too narrowly about costs in very similar ways.
The difficulty in copying always comes from the lack of experience and understanding of why things were designed the way they were. The collective experience of your workforce and the technical details, like, *why* is this 3D printed part exactly this alloy, what surface finish is required on this part on this surface so that your engine doesn't blow up, etc. costs a lot of money to develop and even if you had an exact copy, it'd be difficult to know exactly how to make many of the parts.
This should almost be obvious from numerous examples in the space industry so far. It's why we concluded that that Saturn main rocket engine (sorry, forgetting the name right now) would be too expensive to rebuild - because despite having all the blueprints, the US lost a lot of the know-how. And then look at the RD-180 - ULA has a deal with Energomash where the ULA actually has access to the designs and can try to build it in the US. Before SpaceX, this was probably one of the most cost effective engines out there. Yet, it was again concluded that the cost of setting up manufacturing lines was prohibitive and the best thing to do was to continue buying engines from Energomash.
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You can't mass production a rocket engine. Even one thousand engines is not mass production.
Stop splitting semantic hairs where it's not accretive. For the purpose of low marginal cost rocket engine, it is mass production.
I agree. If there is a production line set up to produce the engines, then it's mass production. And I've worked in factories making billions of parts (electrical components), and some as few as hundreds (test equipment). In fact, if there is dedicated production equipment, that is an indication of mass production.
SpaceX is currently building Merlin and Raptor engines in what would be called "mass production". In other words, dedicated serial production of a product. Which is needed if you want to build something for the least practicable cost.
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<SNIP>
If you're not selling products, but services, the developments costs don't matter when producing the already developed way of providing said services. Those costs have already been made. One rocket out of one will be almost equally as expensive as one out of a thousand (as soon as you have left the major development process).
The rockets (be it one or one thousand), however, are part of the amortized costs. So when calculating the break-even point you should have the development, production, and operational costs on one side, and the price you're selling your services for on the other.
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That "cheap" opens a world of possibilities. Whether someone else can replicate to the work to get to that point isn't terribly interesting.
This thread is named "what if...?" replicating is a consequence of being unreasonably cheap.
In my opinion, if this rocket is so cheap to design and manufacture (cheaper than to build a Falcon 9, as somebody has said here) everywhere in the world will begin to try its own steampunk rocket. Because it will be so easy to manufacture that it will be cheap even in expendable mode. So cheap that you won't do a lot of research. Instead you will begin to launch and try. Your failures will be cheap, it doesn' t matter.
It is so unreasonably cheap that you can afford to expend 10 rockets trying to achieve your first successful flight. Every country could do that, even the poorest. You will have a lot of other rockets competing with you.
But, for now... I don' t see anybody out in the world replicating steampunk rockets. Maybe nobody believes it will be SO cheap.
On the other hand, I expect, obviously that the cost of kg in orbit will be cheaper than using F9, because of larger size and reusability. If this goal is not achieved it will be a failure.
But not so cheap. It is impossible. Nonsense. Why are not SpaceX applying this improvements in making Merlins even cheaper than now? (Its only an example). If you can manufacture a Rapton ten times cheaper than a Marlin you can also make a Merlin ten times cheaper than today current costs. And everybody will copy your magic recipe, obviously.
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You can't mass production a rocket engine. Even one thousand engines is not mass production.
Stop splitting semantic hairs where it's not accretive. For the purpose of low marginal cost rocket engine, it is mass production.
NO, the argument is clear. If you do some kind of serial production you will get some cost reduction, but not an unreasonably cost reduction. In order to end with a incredible rocket engine like Raptor cheaper than some luxury cars you will need mass production (millions of engines, like in automotive industry)
It will not happen. At all.
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That "cheap" opens a world of possibilities. Whether someone else can replicate to the work to get to that point isn't terribly interesting.
This thread is named "what if...?" replicating is a consequence of being unreasonably cheap.
In my opinion, if this rocket is so cheap to design and manufacture (cheaper than to build a Falcon 9, as somebody has said here) everywhere in the world will begin to try its own steampunk rocket. Because it will be so easy to manufacture that it will be cheap even in expendable mode. So cheap that you won't do a lot of research. Instead you will begin to launch and try. Your failures will be cheap, it doesn' t matter.
It is so unreasonably cheap that you can afford to expend 10 rockets trying to achieve your first successful flight. Every country could do that, even the poorest. You will have a lot of other rockets competing with you.
But, for now... I don' t see anybody out in the world replicating steampunk rockets. Maybe nobody believes it will be SO cheap.
On the other hand, I expect, obviously that the cost of kg in orbit will be cheaper than using F9, because of larger size and reusability. If this goal is not achieved it will be a failure.
But not so cheap. It is impossible. Nonsense. Why are not SpaceX applying this improvements in making Merlins even cheaper than now? (Its only an example). If you can manufacture a Rapton ten times cheaper than a Marlin you can also make a Merling ten times cheaper than today current costs. And everybody will copy your magic recipt, obviously.
How much do you think a Merlin costs?
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How much do you think a Merlin costs?
No idea, according to this 2 million $
https://www.quora.com/How-much-does-it-cost-to-produce-a-single-Merlin-engine-in-SpaceX-rockets (https://www.quora.com/How-much-does-it-cost-to-produce-a-single-Merlin-engine-in-SpaceX-rockets)
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That "cheap" opens a world of possibilities. Whether someone else can replicate to the work to get to that point isn't terribly interesting.
This thread is named "what if...?" replicating is a consequence of being unreasonably cheap.
In my opinion, if this rocket is so cheap to design and manufacture (cheaper than to build a Falcon 9, as somebody has said here) everywhere in the world will begin to try its own steampunk rocket. Because it will be so easy to manufacture that it will be cheap even in expendable mode. So cheap that you won't do a lot of research. Instead you will begin to launch and try. Your failures will be cheap, it doesn' t matter.
It is so unreasonably cheap that you can afford to expend 10 rockets trying to achieve your first successful flight. Every country could do that, even the poorest. You will have a lot of other rockets competing with you.
But, for now... I don' t see anybody out in the world replicating steampunk rockets. Maybe nobody believes it will be SO cheap.
On the other hand, I expect, obviously that the cost of kg in orbit will be cheaper than using F9, because of larger size and reusability. If this goal is not achieved it will be a failure.
But not so cheap. It is impossible. Nonsense. Why are not SpaceX applying this improvements in making Merlins even cheaper than now? (Its only an example). If you can manufacture a Rapton ten times cheaper than a Marlin you can also make a Merling ten times cheaper than today current costs. And everybody will copy your magic recipt, obviously.
It's only unreasonably cheap for SpaceX, not any random aerospace company. No one else has a Raptor competitor at the price targets that Elon is aspirationally aiming for. Blue's BE-4 could be similarly used, but they're are at least an order of magnitude more expensive than the $200K target for Raptor. Others can imitate the stainless steel construction of SS and vastly reduce part of their costs, but they still need an engine that is cheap and has a high TWR to make it work. No one else in the world that I'm aware of has such a thing.
They've already applied many of the lessons to Merlin. In the various talks that Tom Mueller has given, the price estimates for Merlin are in the 6-figure range already. But, the F9 family is a technological dead-end. They are cheap, reliable rockets for the current market. But they are not fully reusable. Redesigning F9 to be SS-like in terms of cost would be building a new rocket... which is in fact what they're doing with SS/SH.
Edit to add Tom Mueller interview:
Transcript here (https://zlsadesign.com/post/tom-mueller-interview-2017-05-02-transcription/)
Like, here’s a conversation I had maybe about five years ago on the Merlin 1D when we first developed it. He asked me; he said, “How much do you think it costs to make a Model S?” And I’m like “I don’t know; 50 thousand dollars?” He said “No, about 30 thousand dollars.” That’s the marginal cost for that car.
And he said, “How much does that car weigh?” And I said, “About 5 thousand pounds.” And how much does a Merlin engine weigh? I go, “About a thousand pounds?” So, he’s like, “So why the heck does it cost, you know, some fraction of a million dollars to make a Merlin engine?”
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How much do you think a Merlin costs?
No idea, according to this 2 million $
https://www.quora.com/How-much-does-it-cost-to-produce-a-single-Merlin-engine-in-SpaceX-rockets (https://www.quora.com/How-much-does-it-cost-to-produce-a-single-Merlin-engine-in-SpaceX-rockets)
According to Tom Mueller, it was "some fraction of a million dollars", or 600k, depending how you read it.
https://zlsadesign.com/post/tom-mueller-interview-2017-05-02-transcription/
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That "cheap" opens a world of possibilities. Whether someone else can replicate to the work to get to that point isn't terribly interesting.
This thread is named "what if...?" replicating is a consequence of being unreasonably cheap.
In my opinion, if this rocket is so cheap to design and manufacture (cheaper than to build a Falcon 9, as somebody has said here) everywhere in the world will begin to try its own steampunk rocket. Because it will be so easy to manufacture that it will be cheap even in expendable mode. So cheap that you won't do a lot of research. Instead you will begin to launch and try. Your failures will be cheap, it doesn' t matter.
It is so unreasonably cheap that you can afford to expend 10 rockets trying to achieve your first successful flight. Every country could do that, even the poorest. You will have a lot of other rockets competing with you.
But, for now... I don' t see anybody out in the world replicating steampunk rockets. Maybe nobody believes it will be SO cheap.
On the other hand, I expect, obviously that the cost of kg in orbit will be cheaper than using F9, because of larger size and reusability. If this goal is not achieved it will be a failure.
But not so cheap. It is impossible. Nonsense. Why are not SpaceX applying this improvements in making Merlins even cheaper than now? (Its only an example). If you can manufacture a Rapton ten times cheaper than a Marlin you can also make a Merling ten times cheaper than today current costs. And everybody will copy your magic recipt, obviously.
Stop.... relax. Take a few deep breaths and let them out slowly. Maybe make yourself a cup of tea.
Now are we sitting comfortably?
The OP (original poster) is known to put out questions backed up by a lot of "reasoned" maths. That doesn't mean they are reasonable!!!
Don't let it get to you. It is after all just conjecture. No need to get Merlins, Raptors, and receipts in a twist. This subject has got many seasoned space-watchers so captivated, and the pace of change at Boca Chica has been so astonishing, that many experts are revising their carefully crafted assessments by the day! You are not alone in your surprise.
However many on this forum (not me) are engineers, with careers in the space industry, so if they use correct spelling, accurate technical terms, or are a bit critical about splitting hairs, don't let it upset you.
If you like the site for its high quality debate, mathematical backup, engineering insight, and up to the second news, then just enjoy that.
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NO, the argument is clear. If you do some kind of serial production you will get some cost reduction, but not an unreasonably cost reduction. In order to end with a incredible rocket engine like Raptor cheaper than some luxury cars you will need mass production (millions of engines, like in automotive industry)
It will not happen. At all.
Wrong. It simply needs an initially high ratio of labor/component costs. Two-weeks labor per engine vs. 12 hours is already a 10:1 reduction in labor.
You are demonstrating ignorance and arrogance (absolute statements are almost always a combination of ignorance and arrogance.) which you will come to find not terribly welcome around here.
Enjoy your stay.
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Wrong. It simply needs an initially high ratio of labor/component costs. Two-weeks labor per engine vs. 12 hours is already a 10:1 reduction in labor.
I understand it very well
The question is how do you end making a rocket engine in 12 hours, from previous 2 weeks. You will need a very incredible breakthrough in design or manufacture. I don' t see anything in raptor that makes me think that was achieved or will be achieved.
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Wrong. It simply needs an initially high ratio of labor/component costs. Two-weeks labor per engine vs. 12 hours is already a 10:1 reduction in labor.
I understand it very well
The question is how do you end making a rocket engine in 12 hours, from previous 2 weeks. You will need a very incredible breakthrough in design or manufacture. I don' t see anything in raptor that makes me think that was achieved or will be achieved.
SpaceX is planning on production line capability to make an engine every 12 hours. Of course, production rate and man-hours are not necessarily related. And actual Merlin production is about one every 3 days.
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I don' t see anything in raptor that makes me think
You don't see anything in raptor period. You have no possible insight unless you've flown to Hawthorne and spent time in the fabrication facilities. And more importantly seen the designs, manufacturing approaches, and seen the numbers. Or something equally unlikely.
Elon has and does.
He believes there is a path to 12 hours Raptors at about $200K. Is it probable? Who knows? But his opinion trumps your "cannot happen ... impossible" and his opinion is fun rather than tedious concern-trolling.
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Wrong. It simply needs an initially high ratio of labor/component costs. Two-weeks labor per engine vs. 12 hours is already a 10:1 reduction in labor.
I understand it very well
The question is how do you end making a rocket engine in 12 hours, from previous 2 weeks. You will need a very incredible breakthrough in design or manufacture. I don' t see anything in raptor that makes me think that was achieved or will be achieved.
Having actually WORKED in a number of factories, including being the factory scheduling manager for a high-volume consumer product, I think I have some relevant perspective on this.
First of all you have to understand the life cycle of a product. It starts out as a requirement, then product and test engineering have to get it to work - which could take months or years, and require lots of test units.
At some point manufacturing engineering gets involved (though not always as soon as they want), since it is THEIR job to determine how a product will be manufactured as a certified product, and in volume. And there is a LOT of iteration (i.e. back and forth) between product engineering and manufacturing engineering as the product itself matures, and we've seen this with the Merlin and with the Raptor.
As to how much time it takes to actually build an engine, saying generically "X hours or X weeks" is misleading, since that is really only the final assembly time, but it COMPLETELY ignores the sub-assembly time and labor, as well as the parts that are made by suppliers. Having been both a product scheduler and factory scheduling manager I can tell you that only looking at the final assembly time is NOT a good measure of anything.
For instance, Elon Musk said that they were ramping up to build a Raptor every 3 days this summer, but we have no idea how much manufacturing resources that takes. Two people per engine, 10 people per engine, 100 people per engine? My guess is that it's a small team, but behind every small team is a big support staff.
So how many they can produce per year tells us nothing about cost, but we know from Elon Musk that their GOAL is to build a Starship for the same or less than a Falcon 9. Which means it's up to the manufacturing engineering team within SpaceX to keep iterating the design of the Raptor to make the material cost less, and to lower the amount of touch labor.
In other words, we in the public can't determine cost, we have to rely on what Elon Musk says, and he says they are on a path to make the Starship cost less than $62M - which is the price of a Falcon 9, not the product cost.
My $0.02
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I have doubts as the construction methods presented by SpaceX are the tip of a very large iceberg; SpaceX can do it because they are SpaceX. Anyone wants to copy them is going to have to build a similar organization-infrastructure--that is going to be rare, expensive and doubtful many have the stamina or discipline to to so.
But, how do you cope with a large organization and infraestructure and ending with very low manufacturing (and operating) costs? It will imply a very, very, large rate of launchs to distribute this organizational costs and achieve a very, very low cost per lauch.
I think the idea of this thread is that manufacturing SS will be so cheap because of the low cost working we all are seeing in Cocoa facilities. My opinion is that if this low-cost-tech is successful it will be easy to copy everywhere, not "rocket science" any longer.
On the other hand space launch systems are in the "national sovereign" issue that every country takes into account. Every developed country or in a way to be a developed country is now trying to develop its own rocket launchers. Even being as difficult as is now, they are pushing for it. If the technology and costs plummets, every country will do it in order to be "space sovereing".
Maybe people here think a lot in a commercial sense, talking about profit, margins an so on. When space is, above all, national security related.
But I don' t want to derail the thread, that seems to be speculating about, taking into account the proposition is true.
And it is true some of my posts haven' t been elaborated, sorry about it.
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It is impossible for starship to be so cheap. Impossible to be cheaper than Falcon9.
Are you joking here?
The consensus is that it is very FAR from Impossible. We're all a long way down the path of discussions that have raised that possibilities. You might want to review if not already familiar.
The differential manufacturing processes and materials make it eminently possible. Probable? Who knows?
It's not a consensus. There is the assertion by Elon Musk that they have a way to do it, but it's not safe to say that a majority of people believe that there is a path to it, let alone the idea that they've already done so.
It’s not just an assertion by Musk. We’ve watched this being built, and those welders aren’t being paid $10,000/hr.
With modest (and ongoing) refinements it’s still the basic water tank construction we saw demonstrated with Starhopper.
The project could still fail as testing reveals some fundamental flaw with the fabrication technique, but at this point it seems clear that manufacturing Raptors is the main driver of costs on a notional Starship build.
There’s no reason that the unit costs for those couldn’t be driven quite low as the build rate ramps up.
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It’s not just an assertion by Musk. We’ve watched this being built, and those welders aren’t being paid $10,000/hr.
With modest (and ongoing) refinements it’s still the basic water tank construction we saw demonstrated with Starhopper.
The project could still fail as testing reveals some fundamental flaw with the fabrication technique, but at this point it seems clear that manufacturing Raptors is the main driver of costs on a notional Starship build.
There’s no reason that the unit costs for those couldn’t be driven quite low as the build rate ramps up.
The welders and their hourly wages aren't going to be the majority of SpaceX's costs. What we see here is the fabrication of the spaceframe and the tankage. The fabrication of the high tolerance parts - engines, thrusters, valves, high pressure line, etc - are done off site and out of sight by a workforce of unknown size, until they're delivered for assembly.
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I'm retired now, but when I was working, about 10 years ago, pipeline welders got between $50-$90 an hour. If Musk later builds a building, maybe robot welders could weld the rings. He may also want to switch to roll steel. He could then fabricate one loop with one weld before stacking.
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It’s not just an assertion by Musk. We’ve watched this being built, and those welders aren’t being paid $10,000/hr.
With modest (and ongoing) refinements it’s still the basic water tank construction we saw demonstrated with Starhopper.
The project could still fail as testing reveals some fundamental flaw with the fabrication technique, but at this point it seems clear that manufacturing Raptors is the main driver of costs on a notional Starship build.
There’s no reason that the unit costs for those couldn’t be driven quite low as the build rate ramps up.
The welders and their hourly wages aren't going to be the majority of SpaceX's costs. What we see here is the fabrication of the spaceframe and the tankage. The fabrication of the high tolerance parts - engines, thrusters, valves, high pressure line, etc - are done off site and out of sight by a workforce of unknown size, until they're delivered for assembly.
The engine cost has been stated at $200K per, which puts a limit of some 350 people on the workforce for Raptor assembly, if it was capable of peak rates of 700/year.
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... It's them looking at it, and realising that maybe Truax (Sea-dragon) or Kayesr (OTRAG) weren't insane, and that the right lesson to take is nothing about the architecture, just the construction methods.
Hmmm... That's a bit more than I took away. My response was to pochimax's assertion that SpaceX's efforts would be self-defeating as everyone could now replicate SpaceX's efforts (as stated, I strongly disagree), but let's run with it...
Let's say they (whoever "they" are) learn the right lessons. What do they do with it? Will they internalize it? Will that present a fundamental shift any time in the near-intermediate future in what potentially competitive providers are actually doing?
I have doubts as the construction methods presented by SpaceX are the tip of a very large iceberg; SpaceX can do it because they are SpaceX. Anyone wants to copy them is going to have to build a similar organization-infrastructure--that is going to be rare, expensive and doubtful many have the stamina or discipline to to so.
This is the real problem with the 'copy' idea. The concept can be replicated with very old tech. (with higher liftoff mass).
But, if you have anything resembling a 'conventional' space program, you've basically got to throw it all away.
Most of those that have the capability to do this easily from a technical POV are utterly incapable from a political/managerial POV.
- It has been my experience, 30+ years, of studying reusable launch systems that the real problem was finding enough missions that would support a launch rate that would warrant development of a reusable system. Most engineers working the problem new that a two stage fully reusable system was doable, but didn't know if it made any economic sense. World wide launch rates were under a hundred a year, still are.
- Political, managerial and researcher attitudes certainly didn't help either. They kept insisting on very high risk approaches of reusable single stage to orbit and airbreathing concepts.
- The SpaceX approach of incrementally developing reusability while making money really helped. This had never been done before. Also, SpaceX is creating its own demand for launches with its Starlink effort, which looks to be very lucrative.
John
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I'm retired now, but when I was working, about 10 years ago, pipeline welders got between $50-$90 an hour. If Musk later builds a building, maybe robot welders could weld the rings. He may also want to switch to roll steel. He could then fabricate one loop with one weld before stacking.
They're already doing this at the Cocoa FL build site with ~25 one-piece rings laying about, presumably to become a Super Heavy booster. IIRC, roll steel has also been delivered to Boca Chica.
©Seamore Holdings LLC, zoomed
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Please share citations on these "developed and to be developed" countries trying to develop launch programs.
Japan, China, Russia, India and the European Union has the more important and evident launchers outside USA. In fact you could count France and Italy as having its own lauchers, but as you know we europeans work together with Arianespace. That is the main reason we don' t have in Europe one launcher for every country. But the most important countries at least has its own sounding rockets.
Other countries trying to develop its own launchers are Corea (both of them), Iran, Brazil, Argentina, SouthAfrica, Nigeria.... I' m not trying to be exhaustive. Much more countries are creating its own space agencies, even african countries.
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No it is not "obviously the next step for every space agency". You continue to conflate "space agency" with indigenous production and launch services capability. They are very different; not every space agency will need, want or be willing to pay for indigenous production and launch services capability.
You appear to be convinced of the case, but have offered no evidence to support your case. "No more expensive alloys neither expensive friction stir welding."? The technology has been understood for decades. What has been stopping "every space agency" from adopting-implementing previously? Short answer: None, because they do not have a need (or capability) to do so. Could they? Yes. So why have they not already done so?
I think we are discussing here a rocket that is unreasonably cheap but some of you don' t assume its consequences and keep debating as if it is not "unreasonably cheap". For me is very difficult to argue against it, I think it is not fair. I have a rocket that is unreasonably cheap but for whatever reasons only SpaceX is capable of doing it. (Almost magically)
Obiously, (for example) if you need and incredible complex launch platform and complex operations not anybody could try to do this .... but then it won' t be unreasonable cheap. If you only can try this with an exact copy of a Raptor engine it will not be easy, but, again, could it be unreasonable cheap? (Yes, I know, manufacturing thousands of engines per year, but, to launch how many rockets? is out there a market like that?)
It the rocket its not cheap per se, but it is cheap because of an incredible large amount of lauches it could be possible but i think it is not the spirit of this thread. And I feel like arguing against both "types of concept" in mixed comments, and that some of you are using one or the other for convenience. :-\
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No it is not "obviously the next step for every space agency". You continue to conflate "space agency" with indigenous production and launch services capability. They are very different; not every space agency will need, want or be willing to pay for indigenous production and launch services capability.
You appear to be convinced of the case, but have offered no evidence to support your case. "No more expensive alloys neither expensive friction stir welding."? The technology has been understood for decades. What has been stopping "every space agency" from adopting-implementing previously? Short answer: None, because they do not have a need (or capability) to do so. Could they? Yes. So why have they not already done so?
I think we are discussing here a rocket that is unreasonably cheap but some of you don' t assume its consequences and keep debating as if it is not "unreasonably cheap". For me is very difficult to argue against it, I think it is not fair. I have a rocket that is unreasonably cheap but for whatever reasons only SpaceX is capable of doing it. (Almost magically)
SpaceX has spent 15 years paying salaries to increasingly skilled young innovators. This is a sunk cost that SpaceX has already paid off with Falcon 9, Falcon 9R, Falcon heavy and Block 5.
But that's not the culture at any other space company right now, and it's not something tht can be easilly skipped. Anyone can build a water tower- that's kinda the point. But just building tanks doesnt get them into the air, you need a rocket engine worth the trouble, and if SpaceX goes the extra mile and throws reuse on top, that's more institutional knowelege that SpaceX has and only Blue Origin and Linkspace can approach.
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I think we are discussing here a rocket that is unreasonably cheap but some of you don' t assume its consequences and keep debating as if it is not "unreasonably cheap". For me is very difficult to argue against it, I think it is not fair. I have a rocket that is unreasonably cheap but for whatever reasons only SpaceX is capable of doing it. (Almost magically)
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So let's discuss... a shirt... a couch... a large screen display which is "unreasonably cheap"... which most anyone can produce. So why does not everyone do so? No one is saying "only X can produce it".
If you find "...it is very difficult to argue against it, I think it is not fair." it is because you have not made a case for your argument.
And yes, we can "assume its consequences". However, your posited consequences do not align with any reality we are aware of, nor have you offered any credible evidence which does so.
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No it is not "obviously the next step for every space agency". You continue to conflate "space agency" with indigenous production and launch services capability. They are very different; not every space agency will need, want or be willing to pay for indigenous production and launch services capability.
You appear to be convinced of the case, but have offered no evidence to support your case. "No more expensive alloys neither expensive friction stir welding."? The technology has been understood for decades. What has been stopping "every space agency" from adopting-implementing previously? Short answer: None, because they do not have a need (or capability) to do so. Could they? Yes. So why have they not already done so?
I think we are discussing here a rocket that is unreasonably cheap but some of you don' t assume its consequences and keep debating as if it is not "unreasonably cheap". For me is very difficult to argue against it, I think it is not fair. I have a rocket that is unreasonably cheap but for whatever reasons only SpaceX is capable of doing it. (Almost magically)
Obiously, (for example) if you need and incredible complex launch platform and complex operations not anybody could try to do this .... but then it won' t be unreasonable cheap. If you only can try this with an exact copy of a Raptor engine it will not be easy, but, again, could it be unreasonable cheap? (Yes, I know, manufacturing thousands of engines per year, but, to launch how many rockets? is out there a market like that?)
It the rocket its not cheap per se, but it is cheap because of an incredible large amount of lauches it could be possible but i think it is not the spirit of this thread. And I feel like arguing against both "types of concept" in mixed comments, and that some of you are using one or the other for convenience. :-\
You are suffering from something I've coined a term for. Hyperliteral Parsing Derangement Syndrome (HPDS). Sorry for the perjorative word derangement contained therein. I coined it elsewhere. HPDS is the habit of definining a term so narrowly (and refusing any other definition) that your position is tautologically true.
You have defined the concept encapsulated in the word "cheap" chosen by speedevil in the Thread Title in a particular way. You have been told repeatedly that the definition you chose has nothing to do with the operative definition any of us here are using. You refuse (as far as I can tell) to acknowledge that we have done so, done so repeatedly. I'm not even sure you are willing to entertain there are other definitions of that word as used here.
This is really not how honest discussion is conducted. And it's strangely exactly the opposite of the tone of your posts on non-SpaceX topics.
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Hello.
There is a consensus here that an expendable Starship could be also unreasonable cheap or it will be only possible with a reusable one?
On the other hand I don't know if national agencies and replicated starships are now a valid debate for this thread or not, so... not answering for the moment.
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I’ll wait for the alternative thread being set up as promised, because to me “What if an expendable SS can be built for $7m?” is akin to asking “What if SpaceX can perform magic?”
It is the elephant in the room and necessitates further discussion. But point taken that this is not the thread for it.
Edit/Lar: This post is in the right thread now.
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Is this the thread to discuss the merits behind the idea that SS will be unreasonably cheap - i.e. $7m for an expendable launch as proposed by Speedevil in the other thread?
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An Electron rocket, both upper and lower stages, is sub $5 mil per launch, and uses modern composites as fuel tanks. For just the upper stage of Starship, using cheaper Stainless steel and actual mass production of all components, $10 mil wouldnt be too unreasonable.
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An Electron rocket, both upper and lower stages, is sub $5 mil per launch, and uses modern composites as fuel tanks. For just the upper stage of Starship, using cheaper Stainless steel and actual mass production of all components, $10 mil wouldnt be too unreasonable.
So just to be clear. Is the proposed sub $10m expendable cost for SS only - with SH being reused?
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It is a core principle of engineering that it takes more time and effort to make something simple than to make something complicated. Rocket engines have properties that make them very difficult to model and requirements that stretch the limits of materials science. We know SpaceX has their own foundry and have solved problems that the US government was unable to when it comes to metallurgy. Finding those solutions consumes time and money and there is a risk it will all be wasted. The solution, though, isn't necessarily expensive to implement. That's not how manufacturing works.
No one will get their hands on a Raptor to analyze the turbopump bearings or test the metallurgy. I'm sure we will see everyone copy the stainless steel tanks and some of the other more obvious features, but no one will be able to touch Raptor. People will try though because SpaceX has given them a path that is guaranteed to be technically possible. Everyone else is so far behind though that SpaceX will lead the industry for the foreseeable future.
Cheap does NOT equal easy. And frankly that assumption is an insult the entire engineering profession.
If Elon's dreams come true a lot of employees will move from Falcon production to Starlink production and their overhead will go down while their throughput goes up.
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An Electron rocket, both upper and lower stages, is sub $5 mil per launch, and uses modern composites as fuel tanks. For just the upper stage of Starship, using cheaper Stainless steel and actual mass production of all components, $10 mil wouldnt be too unreasonable.
So just to be clear. Is the proposed sub $10m expendable cost for SS only - with SH being reused?
Everything we've heard is that SH reuse is "easy", directly leveraging experience gained with the F9R program. Superheavy benifits from the same cost reductions that Starship does, and is easier to recover, AND is planned to be capable of 1000 launches before structurally requireing retirement. So I'm ignoring it on the grounds that the cost is probably negligible.
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Cheap does NOT equal easy. And frankly that assumption is an insult the entire engineering profession.
Here's what I consider an imperfect but mic-drop analogy to the IMO nonsensical notion that SpaceX acheiving cheap is necessarily easily replicable.
From virtually any populated place on Earth, at any time of day, even if you didn't personally have the capacity yourself ... you could take or borrow a small device, at nearly universally zero-cost to the owner, and send a text to the ISS. That text is infinitesimally cheap even if you amortized the infrastructure to deliver it.
Replicating that infrastructure, shall we say, not so much.
Illustrative Aside for Fun and Color:
A colleague said he was sitting in bed working next to his wife and sent her an Instant Message. I told him it was telling that he would use $10T of network infrastructure to keep from having to talk to his wife. ;)
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Third attempt at this post, I should really have saved the second. (I am typing most of this from memory, please forgive errors)
The initial concept of the original thread was that a basic SS without aerofeatures was $10M, and SH was reusable.
If you add this to the possibility of reusability working optimally - things get unreasonably cheap.
Elon has previously said of the carbon fibre version of SS that it can lead to $1000/passenger orbital transits.
This has considerably higher capital costs, and passenger service requires a far higher reliability than cargo.
It seems arguable that $3/kg might be hittable if everything goes just right. (lower capital costs, no passenger handling)
This for example, in combination with retanking in orbit, and minimal variants, gets really quite interesting.
For example, an Aug 2020 transit taking 6 months to get to Mars with a 1.5km/s initial delta-v from GTO and a 1km/s entry into Mars capture orbit gets around 500 tons into Mars orbit for $20M and change.
This is enough propellant with some margin to load extra onto a crew model SS arriving in Mars orbit, burn extra landing because it is overloaded, land 150 tons cargo from earth, takeoff with crew, and return to earth over a 9 month transfer.
Or in other words, it caps the cost of ISRU at $20M.
Transhipping between a cargo and 'proper' SS to the surface means you burn half the mass.
So, it caps the cost of Mars surface payload at $80/kg or so.
Current Mars payloads are four orders of magnitude more expensive.
Hence - unreasonably cheap.
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Musk has made it clear that he doesn't care much about the cost of individual vehicles, and that he's not interested in disposable rockets; it's the amortized cost per mission that's important. His stated goal is to reduce the cost of space travel to Mars by 4.5 orders of magnitude, which is a factor of ~30,000. The way he proposed to do that is:
Full re-usability -- 2.5 mag
Automated docking and refueling -- 1.0 mag
Using the right propellant -- 0.5 mag
Producing that propellant on Mars -- 0.5 mag
Will a 4.5 magnitude reduction in cost result in SS/SH being "unreasonably cheap"? Absolutely!
To me, the open question isn't whether the final launch costs will be low, it's whether the above goals can be reached. I haven't seen anything yet to suggest they can't be. In fact, now that they've switched to stainless, I wonder if they might actually end up doing a half-magnitude or so better than originally planned.
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Musk has made it clear that he doesn't care much about the cost of individual vehicles, and that he's not interested in disposable rockets; it's the amortized cost per mission that's important.
Amortisation doesn't help you at all in a rapid ramp.
If you are doubling the number of vehicles every synod, then if it takes you ten synods to pay off your vehicle, your paid off vehicle fleet is 1/1024th the size of your whole fleet.
And that is twenty years - you can't neglect cost of money. It may be relevant to rapidly reuse things on earth and on the moon.
Mars - it is pretty much irrelevant until you are at a steady launch cadence that will persist for decades.
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I just slogged through all three pages of this thread and all i got to say, what exactly is being debated here? I read the thread title days ago and didn't know what it was about. After 3 pages I'm still not clear what this thread is about, but then to me the original question is just wrong.
There is no such thing as "unreasonably" cheap as it seems to be being discussed.
If there are 5 companies making widget, at the same cost and selling for around the same price and a 6th company comes along and suddenly due to new technologies, drive or whatever starts producing the same quality widgets at a far cheap price that is just called competition and means that the 5 other companies became lazy, fat and complacent in what I call a "competitive monopoly". Happens all the time with old boring industries.
I don't feel sorry for the other 5 companies, they get fat and lazy and took their eye off of the future, happy with the way things were.
As for the cost of rockets being "unreasonably cheap" impossible! I saw above that there are less than a hundred launches a year and no one wanted to advance to a cheaper faster way of doing things because they didn't see a "demand". That's because no one until now has thought of the price vs demand curve. As prices go down, demand goes up.
For the first time in my life, I actually see the possibility that I may one day be able to go above the atmosphere as a space tourist. Before now, unless you had a spare 20 mil to pay Russia laying around, which few do that was an impossibility. Drugs, there are orphan drugs that can help a lot of people, that are extremely expensive/hard to make down the gravity well on earth, but in LEO, those cures are in reach with "unreasonably" cheap rockets. More satellites, larger satellites, are a very real possibility. You think out scientific advancements are already outstriping society's capability to deal, wait till we can be lofting thousands of experiments outside the atmosphere cheaply.
Space is one of those places where excess capacity will not just sit around being wasted, as the price points drop, demand will, excuse the pun skyrocket. There is no such thing as too or unreasonably cheap when it comes to rockets, because demand is quickly going to start catching up with supply.
That's my 2cents in a thread that I really don't know what's being asked.
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So, it caps the cost of Mars surface payload at $80/kg or so.
Nice!!! What was shuttle? Like $54.5K/kg to LEO. $80/kg to Mars? Hello 2040!!!!
Link References:
Trends: https://www.futuretimeline.net/data-trends/6.htm
Shuttle: https://ttu-ir.tdl.org/bitstream/handle/2346/74082/ICES_2018_81.pdf
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I just slogged through all three pages of this thread and all i got to say, what exactly is being debated here? I
There is no such thing as too or unreasonably cheap when it comes to rockets, because demand is quickly going to start catching up with supply.
That's my 2cents in a thread that I really don't know what's being asked.
Allow me to explain. But you are leaning toward a third thread, so don't go there. ;D
speedevil posted the other thread as a what if. I hate to say it, but he could've framed the title and writeup a little better. I love his stuff but the OP was a tad confusing. The net was: "What can you do if you can produce a minimally-functional expendable SS for implausibly cheap?"
ponchimax wanted to debate entire the premise (which is off topic) sort of refused to engage in an honest debate. A lot of breath was wasted trying to discuss with him but to very little avail. It ruined the intent of speedevil's what if thread and so was carved off into this one.
Here you can discuss whether SS can be really, really cheap.
There you can discuss what you can do if it is.
Debating whether unreasonable can ever apply is sort of silly (so let's don't) because that's not really the point and where the Titles there and here should be revised for clarity.
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speedevil posted the other thread as a what if. I hate to say it, but he could've framed the title and writeup a little better. I love his stuff but the OP was a tad confusing. The net was: "What can you do if you can produce a minimally-functional expendable SS for implausibly cheap?"
I agree on reflection - I had either had not enough or too much coffee when writing it.
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See additional comment on the Party Thread:
Will SS/SH be unreasonably cheap?
Warning: It calls into question the meaning of reasonable and cheap.
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speedevil posted the other thread as a what if. I hate to say it, but he could've framed the title and writeup a little better. I love his stuff but the OP was a tad confusing. The net was: "What can you do if you can produce a minimally-functional expendable SS for implausibly cheap?"
I agree on reflection - I had either had not enough or too much coffee when writing it.
I asked if you want an apprentice. Seriously bro!!! But at minimum you could use an Executive Assistant. You got too many balls in the air (inside your noggin'). LULZ!!!
But I love it. That's why I went bananas trying to defend your intent. When you start a thread it's like watching Bob Ross paint happy little trees.
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Last time I checked the by comparison tiny F9 upper stage was estimated at around $10m-$12m. Excluding fairing cost.
I just find it unlikely that SS will come close to that.
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Last time I checked the by comparison tiny F9 upper stage was estimated at around $10m-$12m. Excluding fairing cost.
I just find it unlikely that SS will come close to that.
Without looking at an expendable option consider this: stainless steel is much cheaper than 2198 Al-Li alloy, and Musk is projecting Raptor to come in at $200k per engine instead of the $2m I’ve repeatedly seen quoted for Merlin.
Even just plugging in the lower engine cost it’s easy to see that there’s a clear path to producing an uncrewed cargo SS for a broadly similar cost to the F9 upper stage. Whether SpaceX will reach those targets any time soon isn’t something I’m confident in predicting, but at the very least it looks like the SS/SH stack should end up coming in at about the same cost as a full F9 stack and be fully reusable.
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There is no such thing as "unreasonably" cheap as it seems to be being discussed.
If there are 5 companies making widget, at the same cost and selling for around the same price and a 6th company comes along and suddenly due to new technologies, drive or whatever starts producing the same quality widgets at a far cheap price that is just called competition and means that the 5 other companies became lazy, fat and complacent in what I call a "competitive monopoly". Happens all the time with old boring industries.
Technically it's an "oligopoly" and when you dig into those "old boring" industries you often find some kind of price fixing cartel agreement going on as well. :(
I don't feel sorry for the other 5 companies, they get fat and lazy and took their eye off of the future, happy with the way things were.
No one should. The situation in the US launch market was USG sanctioned in the first place.
As for the cost of rockets being "unreasonably cheap" impossible! I saw above that there are less than a hundred launches a year and no one wanted to advance to a cheaper faster way of doing things because they didn't see a "demand". That's because no one until now has thought of the price vs demand curve. As prices go down, demand goes up.
Actually they have. It's called "price elasticity" and the problem is that the demand side is very inelastic. The EELV programme (Atlas V and Delta IV) were meant to half launch prices to the USG.
A 50% price cut. That should raise demand, right?
Wrong. Little by little that price crept up (the launch price inflation rate is substantially higher than general economy inflation rates).
Look at the big picture. In 2000 it cost 10s of $m to put tonne size payloads into orbit.
In 2019 it still costs 10s of $m to put tonne size payloads into orbit. :(
For the first time in my life, I actually see the possibility that I may one day be able to go above the atmosphere as a space tourist. Before now, unless you had a spare 20 mil to pay Russia laying around, which few do that was an impossibility. Drugs, there are orphan drugs that can help a lot of people, that are extremely expensive/hard to make down the gravity well on earth, but in LEO, those cures are in reach with "unreasonably" cheap rockets. More satellites, larger satellites, are a very real possibility. You think out scientific advancements are already outstriping society's capability to deal, wait till we can be lofting thousands of experiments outside the atmosphere cheaply.
Actually what makes a bigger difference would be to launch those payloads on a schedule, and (even more so) to recover them, so the hardware can be tweaked, not built from scratch. That's what Shuttle promised but rarely delivered.
Space is one of those places where excess capacity will not just sit around being wasted, as the price points drop, demand will, excuse the pun skyrocket. There is no such thing as too or unreasonably cheap when it comes to rockets, because demand is quickly going to start catching up with supply.
That also depends on what size "chunks" it's in.
If it's 100$/Kg but only if you buy 150tonne launch then that's still in the 10s of $m (in fact that's cost competitive with the Pegasus the most expensive launcher in the world on a $/Kg to orbit basis).
What you're also missing it's difficult to ride share, as Ariane know. Getting 2 loads to the same orbit has been tough. Getting more (all lined up and ready to go on the same day) is likely to prove exponentially tougher.
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Musk has made it clear that he doesn't care much about the cost of individual vehicles, and that he's not interested in disposable rockets; it's the amortized cost per mission that's important.
Amortisation doesn't help you at all in a rapid ramp.
If you are doubling the number of vehicles every synod, then if it takes you ten synods to pay off your vehicle, your paid off vehicle fleet is 1/1024th the size of your whole fleet.
And that is twenty years - you can't neglect cost of money. It may be relevant to rapidly reuse things on earth and on the moon.
Mars - it is pretty much irrelevant until you are at a steady launch cadence that will persist for decades.
Sure, the cost of money is important -- but raising the capital needed for a rapid ramp is what banks and stock sales are for.
A low amortized cost is important, too, because it allows flexibility and market domination by charging the highest price the market will bear while at the same time providing enough margin to be able to keep prices below the competition. With a high enough price, you could pay off your vehicle in a single mission, regardless of how long it took to amortize.
Eventually, as supply and demand allow, a low amortized cost will also provide access to the mass market for Mars colonization that Musk has said he's after.
The point I'm trying to make is that Musk has given no indication that per-ship capital cost is a primary driver for their design decisions. He has repeatedly said that his focus is on driving per-mission costs down, with re-use being one of the keys to accomplishing that. He has also used large passenger jets as an example: vehicles with an extremely high capital cost, but with a very low amortized cost per passenger, because they can be put into near-constant re-use.
I was under the impression the above was well understood and accepted. Have I missed something?
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High per unit construction cost coupled with extensive reuse capability is the best competitive situation for SpaceX. Because it allows them to amortize the high per unit cost over say 100 launches, while denying competitors the same opportunity, given that SpaceX as first mover can deny any second mover the flight revenue needed to repay the large initial investment by undercutting their prices with an already mature product.
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The point I'm trying to make is that Musk has given no indication that per-ship capital cost is a primary driver for their design decisions. <snip>
I was under the impression the above was well understood and accepted. Have I missed something?
The maths doesn't work.
At least initially, until you get to a steady state, you do not save much in the context of even a modest ramp in traffic by going reusable for the vehicles going to Mars.
You save enormously on lifting fuel to LEO, and modestly on lifting cargo from Mars.
'What banks are for' - banks are not free - they charge interest.
If you have to amortise over many Mars trips, this explodes your costs - a 5% loan over 20 years (~10 synods) costs you an extra 160% or so to repay.
If propellant is 30% of your operating costs, for example, reusing them more than twice does not help economically.
If SS has any value on Mars (for parts, or as habitat, or just for raw materials), this makes the case for reuse worse.
The major problem is simply the time. While you can get to Mars in 80 days by using modestly higher velocity, and while you can get to Mars and back in a year, you cannot go between earth and Mars more often than once every 26 months.
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The point I'm trying to make is that Musk has given no indication that per-ship capital cost is a primary driver for their design decisions. <snip>
I was under the impression the above was well understood and accepted. Have I missed something?
The maths doesn't work.
At least initially, until you get to a steady state, you do not save much in the context of even a modest ramp in traffic by going reusable for the vehicles going to Mars.
You save enormously on lifting fuel to LEO, and modestly on lifting cargo from Mars.
'What banks are for' - banks are not free - they charge interest.
If you have to amortise over many Mars trips, this explodes your costs - a 5% loan over 20 years (~10 synods) costs you an extra 160% or so to repay.
If propellant is 30% of your operating costs, for example, reusing them more than twice does not help economically.
If SS has any value on Mars (for parts, or as habitat, or just for raw materials), this makes the case for reuse worse.
The major problem is simply the time. While you can get to Mars in 80 days by using modestly higher velocity, and while you can get to Mars and back in a year, you cannot go between earth and Mars more often than once every 26 months.
That’s what Starlink is for. To help subsidize the substantial money sink that is Mars colonization.
At say $100m per SS travelling to Mars (excluding SH), but including life support systems, the idea is to reuse it 10 times, so over 20 years it will cost only $10m per Mars trip. But yes, it will take 20 years to see that amortization take full effect - due to the 2 year synods.
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At say $100m per SS travelling to Mars (excluding SH), but including life support systems, the idea is to reuse it 10 times, so over 20 years it will cost only $10m per Mars trip. But yes, it will take 20 years to see that amortization take full effect - due to the 2 year synods.
You don't get to do that simple division when cost of money plays a dominant role. 1.05^20 = 2.65, not 1.
Nor when you can't neglect the value of SS on (or around) Mars.
Nor when carrying extra ISRU equipment to Mars to return all vehicles costs.
Any of the latter factors coming into play means you have value on the 'do not reuse' side, that can easily swamp the small savings from reuse more than once or perhaps twice.
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The point I'm trying to make is that Musk has given no indication that per-ship capital cost is a primary driver for their design decisions. <snip>
I was under the impression the above was well understood and accepted. Have I missed something?
The maths doesn't work.
At least initially, until you get to a steady state, you do not save much in the context of even a modest ramp in traffic by going reusable for the vehicles going to Mars.
You save enormously on lifting fuel to LEO, and modestly on lifting cargo from Mars.
Sorry, I'm still missing something. If the following is too much, feel free to ignore.
If tankers, passenger and cargo ships all use the same "airframe", then if you're saving on lifting fuel to LEO, aren't you also saving for vehicles going to Mars?
'What banks are for' - banks are not free - they charge interest.
If you have to amortise over many Mars trips, this explodes your costs - a 5% loan over 20 years (~10 synods) costs you an extra 160% or so to repay.
If you can receive enough income to pay for a ship in a single trip, the time you need to pay interest would be very short. Meanwhile, you could still amortize the cost of the ship over a much longer period. The amortized cost is what you use to determine your true operating costs.
In addition, you don't have to pay interest when you sell stock. Plus there's StarLink revenue if/when it materializes.
If propellant is 30% of your operating costs, for example, reusing them more than twice does not help economically.
If SS has any value on Mars (for parts, or as habitat, or just for raw materials), this makes the case for reuse worse.
The major problem is simply the time. While you can get to Mars in 80 days by using modestly higher velocity, and while you can get to Mars and back in a year, you cannot go between earth and Mars more often than once every 26 months.
So are you suggesting that because the individual ships that go to Mars won't be reused as much as tankers, that makes them not economically viable?
I would expect ships that return from Mars (there-and-back during the same synod) could be put to use doing other things before their next trip -- launching satellites or going to the Moon or whatever -- which would improve their re-use over just to-Mars-and-back every 26 months.
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At say $100m per SS travelling to Mars (excluding SH), but including life support systems, the idea is to reuse it 10 times, so over 20 years it will cost only $10m per Mars trip. But yes, it will take 20 years to see that amortization take full effect - due to the 2 year synods.
You don't get to do that simple division when cost of money plays a dominant role. 1.05^20 = 2.65, not 1.
Nor when you can't neglect the value of SS on (or around) Mars.
Nor when carrying extra ISRU equipment to Mars to return all vehicles costs.
Any of the latter factors coming into play means you have value on the 'do not reuse' side, that can easily swamp the small savings from reuse more than once or perhaps twice.
I understand the time value of money very well. However, if I understand your point correctly, then I think you are focusing on the wrong side of the argument.
I am saying that they have no choice with regard to the cost, because building a vehicle that can support 100 people on a 3 month journey to Mars and land them safely will cost at least $100m. You can’t go cheap when people’s lives are at stake, and a people carrier is far more complex than a cargo hauler.
So the $100m cost - for sake of argument, to distinguish it from a $10m cost - is a given. The question then becomes how do you mitigate this cost and the answer is to spread it across multiple flights via reuse.
Your argument, if I understand it correctly, is that the $100m vehicle can be built for $10m if you just forego reuse. And I’m saying for LEO cargo launches, perhaps something along those lines will someday be possible, but for an interplanetary ship transporting people you cannot go cheap. $100m is probably too low. So you have no other option except reuse to bring the cost down.
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So are you suggesting that because the individual ships that go to Mars won't be reused as much as tankers, that makes them not economically viable?
I would expect ships that return from Mars (there-and-back during the same synod) could be put to use doing other things before their next trip -- launching satellites or going to the Moon or whatever -- which would improve their re-use over just to-Mars-and-back every 26 months.
In short - somewhat.
I am arguing that you cannot simply do "$100M/10 reuse = $10M" and call it done, as the economics doesn't work like that.
You need to properly compute the savings if you are going to compare retire-on-mars, reuse, and expendable. This is unfortunately complex.
I am not arguing for the use of $10M 'minimal' starships for crew to Mars.
Some of the reuse has serious costs.
Crew return is of course mandatory, but sizing the ISRU plant to return everything raises the cost both of delivery and purchase on earth, and slows your construction.
If SS parts are needed for reuse on Mars, you have to take the cost of reshipping 80 tons of stainless steel out of the savings you make from reuse. (to simplify - obviously it's not a simple trade).
Expendable cargo makes IMO a really good addition - a minimal vehicle can deliver ~1000 tons of cargo into Mars capture orbit from GTO. (2km/s burn, 8 month coast, 1km/s burn).
Combining this with retired vehicles on Mars means that from this 1000 tons, you can get 500 tons cargo down for the cost of one expendable and ~12 launches.
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Does reusing airframes that are mostly amortized (due to high frequency use near Earth) and converting them into carriers for the Mars run help at all? I would think it would, if the conversion cost is not too high.
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Does reusing airframes that are mostly amortized (due to high frequency use near Earth) and converting them into carriers for the Mars run help at all? I would think it would, if the conversion cost is not too high.
If you have a large enough fleet on earth that the population of Earth crew-capable vehicles dominates over Mars transit, then yes, it makes the amortisation discussion irrelevant.
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No one will get their hands on a Raptor to analyze the turbopump bearings or test the metallurgy. [...]Everyone else is so far behind though that SpaceX will lead the industry.
So you are thinking SS will not launch out of US. Not launching from Guyana, Russia, India or China, in order not to copy engines and other solutions .
As a lot of satellites cannot be launched, for obvious reasons, from US soil it will be a very big incentive to try a similar approach for other space agencies, launch providers and private investments.
The current distance between SpaceX and other space agencies is not so big. Every good approach from SpaceX will be copied, as is happening right now.
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So, it caps the cost of Mars surface payload at $80/kg or so.
It is ten times expensier than air cargo here on earth. I think it is not possible. You are speaking about cargo to mars. Maybe if we had AGRAV ships or so...
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Starship is utilizing much cheaper materials and construction techniques, but it also requires more of everything. More of everything is offset by how minimal SpaceX can be to put a Starship together, but indoor facilities will make the production of vehicles quicker and less difficult for workers. Whatever Starship costs includes the costs of the facilities and equipment used, and the depreciation of said equipment and facilities over time. All that being said, with a facility to streamline the highly repetitive processes like assembling stainless steel rings, starship bereft of aerosurfaces and running on three engines is probably unreasonably cheap. It would not surprise me if the work required to cover the underbelly in heat shield tile, produce and install aerosurfaces, and load out the nose cone with header tanks, more than doubles the cost of a spartan Starship.
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The current distance between SpaceX and other space agencies is not so big. Every good approach from SpaceX will be copied, as is happening right now.
Can you cite specific examples of this? As far as I can tell most space agencies seem to be coasting on inertia. Russia is still working on the Angara, which was already obsolete a few years ago. In Europe they are working on the Ariane 6, which is also obsolete. I know less about Japan and India but I think it would have made big headlines if they put serious funding behind anything significantly different. The one possible exception might be China, but how could we tell since their work is military and anything revolutionary is likely to be pretty secret.
Why do you believe SpaceX is being copied by Space Agencies? Which space agencies?
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Does reusing airframes that are mostly amortized (due to high frequency use near Earth) and converting them into carriers for the Mars run help at all? I would think it would, if the conversion cost is not too high.
If you have a large enough fleet on earth that the population of Earth crew-capable vehicles dominates over Mars transit, then yes, it makes the amortisation discussion irrelevant.
I was also thinking tankers and cargo used for the martian side. Plus conversion of end of life airframes from cargo to crew (which might be giving up most of the savings...). But I'm not totally sure I buy the 10:100M price difference for crewed...
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As a lot of satellites cannot be launched, for obvious reasons, from US soil it will be a very big incentive to try a similar approach for other space agencies, launch providers and private investments.
There is no technical reason that any given orbit cannot be reached from any given launch site, if you have deltav to waste or the payload is small compared to the max payload to LEO. So you presumably mean non technical reasons, like hostile country spy birds and the like. SpaceX can cede that market easily and remain dominant.
So, it caps the cost of Mars surface payload at $80/kg or so.
It is ten times expensier than air cargo here on earth. I think it is not possible. You are speaking about cargo to mars. Maybe if we had AGRAV ships or so...
Show your numbers for this. Don't just claim you don't believe it. Analyse the derivation and explain why you have an issue with a particular step.
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No one will get their hands on a Raptor to analyze the turbopump bearings or test the metallurgy. [...]Everyone else is so far behind though that SpaceX will lead the industry.
So you are thinking SS will not launch out of US. Not launching from Guyana, Russia, India or China, in order not to copy engines and other solutions .
As a lot of satellites cannot be launched, for obvious reasons, from US soil it will be a very big incentive to try a similar approach for other space agencies, launch providers and private investments.
The current distance between SpaceX and other space agencies is not so big. Every good approach from SpaceX will be copied, as is happening right now.
The Boeing 777 has engines that the Chinese military would kill for and it flies to China all the time. You can't just steal something like that for destructive inspection.
No way to know how big the gap is. No one has fully duplicated the capabilities of GPS though GLONASS is close now decades later. As I mentioned, China has never been able to duplicate the large jet engines used by the US and Europe and it hinders their cargo airplanes.
If SS is successful and someone does successfully copy it then SpaceX will still have a significant lead. Hard to believe it would be less than a decade. And then so what? Competition is a good thing.
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You can't have a cheap and difficult to made engine.
If the engine is $200k per unit that means it will be an incredible easy-to-made rocket engine.
Again, it can't be both cheap and rocket-science.
I went back to this quote because it’s important.
500 years ago: Ocean travel is incredibly dangerous, it will never be cheap.
200 years ago: How can a railroad be the cheapest way to cross a continent?
100 years ago: Planes can carry 1-2 people. Not economical for cargo.
100 years ago: Automobiles are playthings of the rich, incredibly unreliable.
Today: Rockets are incredibly expensive and will never be cheap.
History argues against you. A raptor engine will eventually just be a V8. It will be cheap and common. And copied and varied. A Starship is a steel hull. Methane is dirt cheap.
It’s a step change. Go with it.
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No one will get their hands on a Raptor to analyze the turbopump bearings or test the metallurgy. [...]Everyone else is so far behind though that SpaceX will lead the industry.
So you are thinking SS will not launch out of US. Not launching from Guyana, Russia, India or China, in order not to copy engines and other solutions...
The current distance between SpaceX and other space agencies is not so big. Every good approach from SpaceX will be copied, as is happening right now.
If you've never worked in a manufacturing facility it may seem easy to copy something, but that has become increasingly harder and harder as we have learned how to optimize the materials we use for high-tech products.
For instance, so far China has been unable to produce fan blades for turbofan engines that can compete with current generation engines from American and European engine makers. Why? Because they require decades of knowledge, and American and European engine makers don't share many of their proprietary processes. There also needs to be the full supply chain for any engine, and modern turbofan engines are the product of DECADES of research, development, testing, and operational experience.
As for the topic at hand, can the SS/SH be unreasonably cheap?
Compared to what we spend today to move mass to space, I'd say YES!!
Until the Falcon 9/H we disposed of 100% of a rocket, and that made travel to space very expensive. But with the advent of fully reusable space transportation systems, that cost will drop significantly. And compared to every other existing launch system, the SS/SH will become "unreasonably cheap".
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My take on what "Unreasonably cheap" means:
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Consequencies:
1. a space elevator will never be economically viable.
2. cost of many manufactured items will be much higher than launch costs.
3. cost per person to LEO is within range of millions of people (spending 1% or less of their net wealth)
4. Special purpose expendable versions are viable for uses such as space station elements, missions to main belt asteroids, Jupiter and beyond.
5. Space solar power might be viable (not limited by launch costs)
6. Industrialisation of space is possible
7. Asteroid mining might be viable (not limited by launch costs).
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Starship Mark 1 masses ~200 tons. The target mass is 120. The techniques and components used to build the Mark 1 at 200 tons probably will not be usable on a vehicle that's 40% lighter. The complexity of vehicle production must go up considerably to cut both the weight and production time down.
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Mike, thank you for giving some good answers to this thread. I started to just scroll it down and was stopped by your image, then your text. The implications are futuristic of course!
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My take on what "Unreasonably cheap" means:
To what destination? That $80 line was to Mars.
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My take on what "Unreasonably cheap" means:
To what destination? That $80 line was to Mars.
Everything else on the chart is cost to LEO, the $3/kg is as well. I got the figure $3/kg from:
...
It seems arguable that $3/kg might be hittable if everything goes just right. (lower capital costs, no passenger handling)
...
So, it caps the cost of Mars surface payload at $80/kg or so.
Current Mars payloads are four orders of magnitude more expensive.
Hence - unreasonably cheap.
Which is the same place you have got the $80/kg to Mars surface.
Do I think $3/kg is likely? Well, I'm a reasonable guy and $3/kg is unreasonable. But that does not matter for this thread, which is about "What if...".
Edit/Lar: No it isn't... that's the other thread. :)
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No one will get their hands on a Raptor to analyze the turbopump bearings or test the metallurgy. [...]Everyone else is so far behind though that SpaceX will lead the industry.
So you are thinking SS will not launch out of US. Not launching from Guyana, Russia, India or China, in order not to copy engines and other solutions...
The current distance between SpaceX and other space agencies is not so big. Every good approach from SpaceX will be copied, as is happening right now.
If you've never worked in a manufacturing facility it may seem easy to copy something, but that has become increasingly harder and harder as we have learned how to optimize the materials we use for high-tech products.
For instance, so far China has been unable to produce fan blades for turbofan engines that can compete with current generation engines from American and European engine makers. Why? Because they require decades of knowledge, and American and European engine makers don't share many of their proprietary processes. There also needs to be the full supply chain for any engine, and modern turbofan engines are the product of DECADES of research, development, testing, and operational experience.
As for the topic at hand, can the SS/SH be unreasonably cheap?
Compared to what we spend today to move mass to space, I'd say YES!!
Until the Falcon 9/H we disposed of 100% of a rocket, and that made travel to space very expensive. But with the advent of fully reusable space transportation systems, that cost will drop significantly. And compared to every other existing launch system, the SS/SH will become "unreasonably cheap".
Quite. I work for the makers of a popular small board computer, which is very cheap. We've been selling them for 6 years. In that time, anyone in the world could buy one and spend the time reverse engineering and copying it. Do we have any real competitors? Nope. Because it's actually really difficult to replicate something even if you have one. Not only that, but even if you can copy the hardware there are lots of other areas where it's very difficult to replicate the entire ecosystem. The same applies to the Raptor and the SS in general.
And I cannot see anyone getting hold of a Raptor for reverse engineering in the nr future either! It's also worth noting that in order to make our SBC so cheap, we spend a lot of money of development....same with Raptor - SpaceX have spent a lot of money on development so it can be made cheaply.
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No one will get their hands on a Raptor to analyze the turbopump bearings or test the metallurgy. [...]Everyone else is so far behind though that SpaceX will lead the industry.
So you are thinking SS will not launch out of US. Not launching from Guyana, Russia, India or China, in order not to copy engines and other solutions...
The current distance between SpaceX and other space agencies is not so big. Every good approach from SpaceX will be copied, as is happening right now.
If you've never worked in a manufacturing facility it may seem easy to copy something, but that has become increasingly harder and harder as we have learned how to optimize the materials we use for high-tech products.
For instance, so far China has been unable to produce fan blades for turbofan engines that can compete with current generation engines from American and European engine makers. Why? Because they require decades of knowledge, and American and European engine makers don't share many of their proprietary processes. There also needs to be the full supply chain for any engine, and modern turbofan engines are the product of DECADES of research, development, testing, and operational experience.
As for the topic at hand, can the SS/SH be unreasonably cheap?
Compared to what we spend today to move mass to space, I'd say YES!!
Until the Falcon 9/H we disposed of 100% of a rocket, and that made travel to space very expensive. But with the advent of fully reusable space transportation systems, that cost will drop significantly. And compared to every other existing launch system, the SS/SH will become "unreasonably cheap".
Quite. I work for the makers of a popular small board computer, which is very cheap. We've been selling them for 6 years. In that time, anyone in the world could buy one and spend the time reverse engineering and copying it. Do we have any real competitors? Nope. Because it's actually really difficult to replicate something even if you have one. Not only that, but even if you can copy the hardware there are lots of other areas where it's very difficult to replicate the entire ecosystem. The same applies to the Raptor and the SS in general.
And I cannot see anyone getting hold of a Raptor for reverse engineering in the nr future either! It's also worth noting that in order to make our SBC so cheap, we spend a lot of money of development....same with Raptor - SpaceX have spent a lot of money on development so it can be made cheaply.
Yeah, Boeing could make their own version of Starship, but what would they use for engines? Probably the RD-180 at 20+ million a pop. Then they have the entire concept of full reusability to establish. I'm not sure this is something that would work in their current mindset and this mindset permeates the entire organization.
Blue Origin has a shot at making a reasonable copy of a Starship, but when would that become a reality? In about 10 years?
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(mod) remember, we now have two threads. This one is for debate of the premise, the other one assumes the premise and is the place for predicting/discussing implications. I actually see a couple of new posts I need to move from here back to there :)
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Blue has to get New Glenn up and running before they can begin New Armstrong. They could possibly build a 12m New Armstrong using about 19-20 BE-4 engines, but it would only deliver about the same payload as Starship. They will probably develop a new engine first and go bigger. As you say, New Armstrong is at least 10 years off. Raptor, BE-3, BE-4, and Merlin are the only new significant engines developed within the last 10-15 years in America that could be used on larger rockets that could be reusable. Old space companies will not develop anything on their own without government money. RS-25 was a reworked to be expendable SSME. Large solids are available, but not reusable. Aerojet dropped the ball by not developing the AR-1.
SpaceX does not have any competition with Starship, not even New Glenn can compare once Starship is up and running. Blue Origin could develop an upper stage that is reusable. They have BE-3 and BE-3U. No one else even comes close, or has anything on the drawing board that could work.
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Everything else on the chart is cost to LEO, the $3/kg is as well. I got the figure $3/kg from the same place you have got the $80/kg to Mars surface.
Thanks. Your annotation threw me since I had posted the LEO trend for the purposes of framing speedevil's $80/kg Mars figure and since you annotated/compared the $80/kg vs. $30/kg it wasn't clear
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Starship Mark 1 masses ~200 tons. The target mass is 120. The techniques and components used to build the Mark 1 at 200 tons probably will not be usable on a vehicle that's 40% lighter. The complexity of vehicle production must go up considerably to cut both the weight and production time down.
Mk.1 is heavy to reduce development and capital. IMO its weight has little to do with marginal cost of serial production.
We know from various sources that Mk.1 is built from 5 mm stainless, plus or minus a mm or so. Assuming Mk.1 has a safety factor of 5 to minimize dev and mfg engineering effort, Mk.4 can go to 3 mm stainless with a safety factor of 3 and use most of the same materials and construction techniques, at the cost of some additional engineering, and more time welding and checking welds. There's your 40% weight reduction, with only a moderate marginal cost increase, if any.
Eventually with fully automated welding and full NDI of all welds they can go to 2 mm and SF of 2, and get an 80 t vehicle. This requires a fairly large capital investment, but doesn't necessarily increase the marginal cost of producing another new vehicle, and might actually decrease marginal cost it since it uses less raw material.
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Starship Mark 1 masses ~200 tons. The target mass is 120. The techniques and components used to build the Mark 1 at 200 tons probably will not be usable on a vehicle that's 40% lighter. The complexity of vehicle production must go up considerably to cut both the weight and production time down.
Mk.1 is heavy to reduce development and capital. IMO its weight has little to do with marginal cost of serial production.
We know from various sources that Mk.1 is built from 5 mm stainless, plus or minus a mm or so. Assuming Mk.1 has a safety factor of 5 to minimize dev and mfg engineering effort, Mk.4 can go to 3 mm stainless with a safety factor of 3 and use most of the same materials and construction techniques, at the cost of some additional engineering, and more time welding and checking welds. There's your 40% weight reduction, with only a moderate marginal cost increase, if any.
Eventually with fully automated welding and full NDI of all welds they can go to 2 mm and SF of 2, and get an 80 t vehicle. This requires a fairly large capital investment, but doesn't necessarily increase the marginal cost of producing another new vehicle, and might actually decrease marginal cost it since it uses less raw material.
Maybe somebody will ask musk about cryoformed stainless steel and whether the engineering includes the huge strength increase. Also ask how the welded joints reduce the strength or how they intend to restore the cryoforming.
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Starship Mark 1 masses ~200 tons. The target mass is 120. The techniques and components used to build the Mark 1 at 200 tons probably will not be usable on a vehicle that's 40% lighter. The complexity of vehicle production must go up considerably to cut both the weight and production time down.
Totally agree.
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The current distance between SpaceX and other space agencies is not so big. Every good approach from SpaceX will be copied, as is happening right now.
Can you cite specific examples of this? As far as I can tell most space agencies seem to be coasting on inertia. Russia is still working on the Angara, which was already obsolete a few years ago. In Europe they are working on the Ariane 6, which is also obsolete. I know less about Japan and India but I think it would have made big headlines if they put serious funding behind anything significantly different. The one possible exception might be China, but how could we tell since their work is military and anything revolutionary is likely to be pretty secret.
Why do you believe SpaceX is being copied by Space Agencies? Which space agencies?
You are talking about the future. I have said that current F9 and FH are not so advanced, compared with current rockets. Ariane V is not so far away in price, reliability and whatever compared with SpaceX rockets.
Currently, China space agency and private firms are beginning to test vertical landing and methalox engines.
ESA and Japan have a joint project to test both vertical landing and methalox engines.
Space agencies are maybe slow. But they are moving. They will not stop. They learn and finnally do more or less the same.
And it is supposed people here also reads the international threads to know the state of the art outside US. Some posts here surprised me a lot because of what it seems to be some ignorance about the movements happening now on space issues all around the world.
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Show your numbers for this. Don't just claim you don't believe it. Analyse the derivation and explain why you have an issue with a particular step.
Sorry, I don' t have the numbers. I can' t calculte myself also.
But it surprised me a lot that sending cargo here on Earth (by plane) per kg could cost only 10-20 times less in $ compared to sending some kg to Mars.
It could be interesting if we can compare the mass of propellant required for smooth landing a kg on Mars with the fuel needed by an ordinary freight plane. (per kg)
Really don' t know.
But again it surprises me we could end with a per kg price that is the same for LEO than for an air cargo flight (per kg, according to the web, more or less 4$). It is very counter intuitive, for me.
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How much liquid methane kgs needs SS/SH to launch to LEO 1 kg?
because if one liquid methane kg costs 0.5$, then you will have the minimum cost to LEO and Mars. Only propellant costs.
Could somebody here calculate this, please?
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The deltav required to soft land 1 kg on Mars is about 13700 m/s. Kinetic energy =0.5*m*dv^2 so the energy is 94 GJ, which is equal to the thermal energy in about $1 worth of methane and oxygen.
We aren't perfect at converting thermal energy into kinetic energy, but the propellant cost of a Mars landing using Starship is only about $30/kg.
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Quite. I work for the makers of a popular small board computer, which is very cheap. We've been selling them for 6 years. In that time, anyone in the world could buy one and spend the time reverse engineering and copying it. Do we have any real competitors? Nope. Because it's actually really difficult to replicate something even if you have one. Not only that, but even if you can copy the hardware there are lots of other areas where it's very difficult to replicate the entire ecosystem. The same applies to the Raptor and the SS in general.
And I cannot see anyone getting hold of a Raptor for reverse engineering in the nr future either! It's also worth noting that in order to make our SBC so cheap, we spend a lot of money of development....same with Raptor - SpaceX have spent a lot of money on development so it can be made cheaply.
I think you don' t include some factors in the equation:
- National pride
- National security
Both implies big money for doing investments.
I think market is not even the main reason for having a launch system.
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How much liquid methane kgs needs SS/SH to launch to LEO 1 kg?
because if one liquid methane kg costs 0.5$, then you will have the minimum cost to LEO and Mars. Only propellant costs.
Could somebody here calculate this, please?
Rough estimate:
3.4 mT fuel for SH + 1.2 mT fuel for SS = 4.6 mT fuel total to deliver 100 t of cargo to LEO
4.6 mT / 100 t = 46000 kg fuel per ton of cargo = 46 kg fuel per kg of cargo to LEO
with a LOX:CH4 ratio of 3.6:1, that's 36 kg LOX + 10 kg CH4 per kg of cargo to LEO
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So, in a rough estimation, fuel costs for going to LEO could be around 30 $ per kg cargo.
10 times more than the estimation of 3$ for LEO. And only cost of propellants.
10 times more expensive than an air freight cargo seems more reasonable, intuitively.
So it is necessary to recalculate the 80$ cost to Mars. Propellants consume per kg to Mars should be at least 10 times more bigger. (I don' t have now in mind the number of tankers needed for refuelling a Spaceship that is going to Mars)
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So, in a rough estimation, fuel costs for going to LEO could be around 30 $ per kg.
10 times more than the estimation of 3$ for LEO. And only cost of propellants.
10 times more expensive than an air freight cargo seems more reasonable, intuitively.
So it is necessary to recalculate the 80$ cost to Mars. Propellants consume per kg to Mars should be at least 10 times more bigger. (I don' t have now in mind the number of tankers needed for refuelling a Spaceship that is going to Mars)
Going to Mars, the length of time each flight takes becomes a serious cost in terms of depreciation. If we assume that SpaceX wants each vehicle to start making a profit within 10 years of entering service, we have maybe 5 round trips to pay off the entire vehicle cost. This puts us in the ballpark of $10 million, depending on what Starship ultimately costs to build. This is before adding any sort of maintainence or fuel costs, and especially before adding the price of whatever equipment they need to outfit the vehicle with to support human life.
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So, in a rough estimation, fuel costs for going to LEO could be around 30 $ per kg.
10 times more than the estimation of 3$ for LEO. And only cost of propellants.
10 times more expensive than an air freight cargo seems more reasonable, intuitively.
So it is necessary to recalculate the 80$ cost to Mars. Propellants consume per kg to Mars should be at least 10 times more bigger. (I don' t have now in mind the number of tankers needed for refuelling a Spaceship that is going to Mars)
The cost of liquid methane is roughly $1.35 / kg, and LOX is roughly $0.50. So, that's 1.35 * 10 = $13.50 per kg for CH4, and 0.50 * 36 = $18 for LOX. 18 + 13.50 = ~$31.50 fuel costs per kg to LEO. Call it $30 / kg.
For Mars, a few more rough estimates:
First, to simplify the math, 1 kg of fuel at a 3.6:1 mixture ratio = 0.22 kg CH4 + 0.78 kg LOX = $0.69 per kg combined
Let's say a fully-loaded Starship arrives at LEO with ~1.4 km/s of "spare" delta-V (which could be used to return to Earth, but won't be for a Mars mission). That's about 100 t of spare fuel.
Next, assume 4.8 km/s of mission delta-V needed to get to Mars. That's 577 t of fuel. 577 - 100 = 477 t needed via refueling.
Let's say that's 5 fully loaded tankers, plus the cost of the mission fuel (carried in tankers as cargo):
Base launch + 5 tankers = 6 fully-fueled SH/SS = (3.4 mT + 1.2 mT) * 6 = 27.6 mT fuel
Plus the 477 t of fuel-as-payload for Mars: 27.6 mT + 0.477 mT = 28.1 mT fuel
28.1 mT fuel * $0.69 per kg combined cost = $19.4M
That would be enough to send 100 t to Mars, which puts the fuel-only cost at $19.4M / 100 t = $194 per kg. Call it $200 / kg.
YMMV.
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Quite. I work for the makers of a popular small board computer, which is very cheap. We've been selling them for 6 years. In that time, anyone in the world could buy one and spend the time reverse engineering and copying it. Do we have any real competitors? Nope. Because it's actually really difficult to replicate something even if you have one. Not only that, but even if you can copy the hardware there are lots of other areas where it's very difficult to replicate the entire ecosystem. The same applies to the Raptor and the SS in general.
And I cannot see anyone getting hold of a Raptor for reverse engineering in the nr future either! It's also worth noting that in order to make our SBC so cheap, we spend a lot of money of development....same with Raptor - SpaceX have spent a lot of money on development so it can be made cheaply.
I think you don' t include some factors in the equation:
- National pride
- National security
Both implies big money for doing investments.
I think market is not even the main reason for having a launch system.
Some of our competitors have the backing of very large Chinese companies (probably helped with government money)...still unable to compete....
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The cost of liquid methane is roughly $1.35 / kg, and LOX is roughly $0.50.
Those are far too high, and using fuel cost instead of fuel mass propogates the error to your entire calculation.
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The cost of liquid methane is roughly $1.35 / kg, and LOX is roughly $0.50.
Those are far too high, and using fuel cost instead of fuel mass propogates the error to your entire calculation.
The cost numbers I used were estimates, based on recent prices. It wouldn't surprise me if SpaceX could improve on them, but I have no first-hand knowledge. If you have better numbers, I would be happy to use them.
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The cost of liquid methane is roughly $1.35 / kg, and LOX is roughly $0.50. So, that's 1.35 * 10 = $13.50 per kg for CH4, and 0.50 * 36 = $18 for LOX. 18 + 13.50 = ~$31.50 fuel costs per kg to LEO. Call it $30 / kg.
For Mars, a few more rough estimates:
First, to simplify the math, 1 kg of fuel at a 3.6:1 mixture ratio = 0.22 kg CH4 + 0.78 kg LOX = $0.69 per kg combined
Let's say a fully-loaded Starship arrives at LEO with ~1.4 km/s of "spare" delta-V (which could be used to return to Earth, but won't be for a Mars mission). That's about 100 t of spare fuel.
Next, assume 4.8 km/s of mission delta-V needed to get to Mars. That's 577 t of fuel. 577 - 100 = 477 t needed via refueling.
Let's say that's 5 fully loaded tankers, plus the cost of the mission fuel (carried in tankers as cargo):
Base launch + 5 tankers = 6 fully-fueled SH/SS = (3.4 mT + 1.2 mT) * 6 = 27.6 mT fuel
Plus the 477 t of fuel-as-payload for Mars: 27.6 mT + 0.477 mT = 28.1 mT fuel
28.1 mT fuel * $0.69 per kg combined cost = $19.4M
That would be enough to send 100 t to Mars, which puts the fuel-only cost at $19.4M / 100 t = $194 per kg. Call it $200 / kg.
Some issues.
You appear to be using $1400/ton for the cost of methane - this is the top google result for the cost of methane - but is not actually the cost of methane, it's some 'social cost'.
Currently, natural gas on the spot market is bouncing under $3/MMBTU - $3/300kWh. ( https://markets.businessinsider.com/commodities/natural-gas-price )
(100 kWh) / (55 (MJ / kg)) =6.5kg ( https://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/standard-heat-of-combustion-energy-content-d_1987.html )
So, $0.15/kg, not $1.5/kg.
For oxygen, https://www.nasa.gov/home/hqnews/2009/may/HQ_C09-026_KSC_gas_contracts.html gives a cost of $28M for 200000 tons of liquid oxygen. (2009) as $0.15/kg. (neglecting the equal amount of nitrogen in that contract).
https://www.eia.gov/naturalgas/weekly/archivenew_ngwu/2019/06_06/ confirms a premium of $1/MMBTU or so if you want LNG.
So, $0.20/kg of propellant is reasonable, rather than $0.69.
Assuming 4500 tons propellant used to lift 150, this is $0.2/kg*30 = $6/kg.
A convenient close approximation for propellant cost can be gotten by the fact that you can accelerate a full tanker to 2km/s and then transfer half of the original propellant and then return to the original vector, over a delta-v of 2km/s.
If you have a depot in LEO, fill that, transfer the propellant to a high orbit, this takes the cost to $12/kg. Mars minimal energy rendevous orbit (into Mars capture orbit) tops out at 4.5km/s including the ~0.7km/s arrival burn.
This means propellant on MOI can be reasonably costed at $25/kg. (cargo also at this price)
If we take the 1100 ton propellant /$10M construction cost minimal SS of the hypothesis as the baseline, this can land wholly propulsiely on Mars with ~200 tons of payload for $35M. ($175/kg)
But the real benefit is getting into Mars capture orbit, aerobraking down slowly.
The above minimal SS at MOI can brake and control 5500 tons of cargo into MCO, meaning you can basically neglect the cost of this insertion, meaning cargo into LMO (after an entry phase of some weeks) can be reasonably considered at $40/kg propellant cost.
It costs (for an 85 ton dry vehicle) 150 tons of propellant to get back to LMO, and some 200 prop tons to land with 350 tons of payload.
(the reentry heating is similar to earth entry over the latter part, but the landing burn needs to be considerably more aggressive or you hit the ground).
This can reasonably lead to $80/kg cargo (or propellant) on the martian surface. In propellant costs anyway.
The more interesting point around this is that if you assume transhipping cargo in orbit works, and you can refly the full-up version repeatedly on Mars, and reuse all the earth-side components - the cargo pods and minimal SS to Mars are pretty much your only expendable hardware - and these cost you ~$20M/5500 tons, so can be pretty much neglected.
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Some issues.
You appear to be using $1400/ton for the cost of methane - this is the top google result for the cost of methane - but is not actually the cost of methane, it's some 'social cost'.
Currently, natural gas on the spot market is bouncing under $3/MMBTU - $3/300kWh. ( https://markets.businessinsider.com/commodities/natural-gas-price )
(100 kWh) / (55 (MJ / kg)) =6.5kg ( https://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/standard-heat-of-combustion-energy-content-d_1987.html )
So, $0.15/kg, not $1.5/kg.
For oxygen, https://www.nasa.gov/home/hqnews/2009/may/HQ_C09-026_KSC_gas_contracts.html gives a cost of $28M for 200000 tons of liquid oxygen. (2009) as $0.15/kg. (neglecting the equal amount of nitrogen in that contract).
https://www.eia.gov/naturalgas/weekly/archivenew_ngwu/2019/06_06/ confirms a premium of $1/MMBTU or so if you want LNG.
So, $0.20/kg of propellant is reasonable, rather than $0.69.
I think that using commodity prices you forget the costs of transportation and commercialization. That will put the cost nearing the figure Ace has posted.
Assuming 4500 tons propellant used to lift 150
I think Musk has always said 100 Tm to LEO. But I' m not sure about it.
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And we are talking about fuel costs, only. And because I' am trying to invalidate the hypothesis.
There will be another costs, lots of cost, that we have forgotten, for the moment.
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Next, assume 4.8 km/s of mission delta-V needed to get to Mars.
thanks,
but are we sure this figure includes delta V for soft landing on Mars, from LEO?
Just in case, I only want confirmation that figure is right.
And we are talking in this hypothetical scenario, about expendable SS on Mars. That will to add to costs. Or add costs of refueling on Mars.
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The first two Starships to Mars are to set up methane and oxygen manufacturing for future Starships to land and refuel to return to earth. They will probably be partially expendable as they will have to land on Mars, but they probably will not have to have the heat tiles added to the windward side for Mars entry and landing as Mars atmosphere is thinner than earths. They will stay on Mars.
All earth return and re-entry Starships will have to have the full complement of heat resistance equipment.
The most expensive part of Starships are the engines and they are about $2 million each. Stainless steel is, from what I remember Elon said, about 3%-6% of the cost of composite, so stainless is far less expensive and more heat resistant. Aluminum is probably cheaper for expendable spacecraft, but it is expendable. Stainless can be either, but being more heat resistant, can return easier.
It will be cheaper per/kg launched into space because stainless steel is far less expensive than composite. The Raptor is partially 3D printed thus keeping manufacturing costs down. Fuel is cheap.
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Some issues.
You appear to be using $1400/ton for the cost of methane - this is the top google result for the cost of methane - but is not actually the cost of methane, it's some 'social cost'.
Currently, natural gas on the spot market is bouncing under $3/MMBTU - $3/300kWh. ( https://markets.businessinsider.com/commodities/natural-gas-price )
(100 kWh) / (55 (MJ / kg)) =6.5kg ( https://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/standard-heat-of-combustion-energy-content-d_1987.html )
So, $0.15/kg, not $1.5/kg.
For oxygen, https://www.nasa.gov/home/hqnews/2009/may/HQ_C09-026_KSC_gas_contracts.html gives a cost of $28M for 200000 tons of liquid oxygen. (2009) as $0.15/kg. (neglecting the equal amount of nitrogen in that contract).
https://www.eia.gov/naturalgas/weekly/archivenew_ngwu/2019/06_06/ confirms a premium of $1/MMBTU or so if you want LNG.
So, $0.20/kg of propellant is reasonable, rather than $0.69.
I think that using commodity prices you forget the costs of transportation and commercialization. That will put the cost nearing the figure Ace has posted.
Assuming 4500 tons propellant used to lift 150
I think Musk has always said 100 Tm to LEO. But I' m not sure about it.
NASA paid $0.15/kg for LOX for the Shuttle, including profits for the contractor and all costs to deliver to KSC.
At large enough quantities, SpaceX can set up an on-site LOX plant and make their own LOX for perhaps $0.05/kg, since they don't need to charge themselves profit.
And the commodity price for LNG is pretty close to what they would pay for the quantities needed for Starship. We're talking about 50 to 100 thousand tonnes per year. A 10x markup for "transportation" is entirely unjustifiable.
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I worked with a natural gas company before I retired. Transporting natural gas from well head to customer is only about 20% of the cost of the gas. Also, the more you buy, the cheaper it is. One Starship/superheavy would probably use enough LNG to power a town or small city for a month. That is a lot of cheap bulk cost LNG. Also, LNG is already in Texas. Natural gas is transported from Louisiana to Florida via a few large pipelines near and in the Gulf of Mexico. May cost a little more in Florida than Texas, but not much.
Large industries and power plants that bought the gas from the company I worked for only paid 10% of what it cost us to deliver it. Way lower than residential cost, way way lower because of the huge volume.
It may also be cheaper for SpaceX to buy the natural gas via pipeline under high pressure gaseous state, then liquify it at the launch site with their own LNG facilities, no need for truck transport of large amounts (cheaper by pipeline).
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I think that using commodity prices you forget the costs of transportation and commercialization. That will put the cost nearing the figure Ace has posted.
http://www.txlng.com/theproject/texas-lng-site.html I note is 10km from the Texas site.
This is very much a future estimate, based on the capabilities of today, and an assumed reusable SS.
My $80/kg ($40/kg to LMO) was based on a future in which at least a vehicle is being launched a week towards Mars, with the only expendable component being an inexpensive minimal SS class stage to do the braking into mars capture orbit.
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The more I look at it, the more I think the whole question misses the point:
Starship is being designed to support human settlement on Mars; that mission requires lowering the cost of spaceflight to otherwise unreasonably low levels. Yes, it's going to do a lot of other things but it's the Mars effort that's driving the design even if Starlink flights are going to dominate the manifest.
From that perspective, if Starship isn't "unreasonably cheap" it can't meet its mission parameters. In the end, there really are only two options-- either Starship is unreasonably cheap or it's a failure.
I for one don't expect it to fail.
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Next, assume 4.8 km/s of mission delta-V needed to get to Mars.
thanks,
but are we sure this figure includes delta V for soft landing on Mars, from LEO?
Just in case, I only want confirmation that figure is right.
Yes. I assumed 3.6 km/s delta-V to get to Mars from 250 km LEO, plus 1.2 km/s for EDL. It can be done for less, so think of that as a "typical" number, not a minimum.
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Some issues.
You appear to be using $1400/ton for the cost of methane - this is the top google result for the cost of methane - but is not actually the cost of methane, it's some 'social cost'.
Currently, natural gas on the spot market is bouncing under $3/MMBTU - $3/300kWh. ( https://markets.businessinsider.com/commodities/natural-gas-price )
(100 kWh) / (55 (MJ / kg)) =6.5kg ( https://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/standard-heat-of-combustion-energy-content-d_1987.html )
So, $0.15/kg, not $1.5/kg.
I don't disagree that my number is high, but natural gas contains a lot more than just methane, right? Surely there's some added cost for purification, liquification, transportation and storage.
For oxygen, https://www.nasa.gov/home/hqnews/2009/may/HQ_C09-026_KSC_gas_contracts.html gives a cost of $28M for 200000 tons of liquid oxygen. (2009) as $0.15/kg. (neglecting the equal amount of nitrogen in that contract).
I saw similar numbers, but figured (1) they're 10 years old, (2) SpaceX isn't NASA, (3) add margin for transportation and storage.
For estimation purposes, I normally like to use a significant margin to the high side. Even so, I agree that my previous number was too high.
My $80/kg ($40/kg to LMO) was based on a future in which at least a vehicle is being launched a week towards Mars, with the only expendable component being an inexpensive minimal SS class stage to do the braking into mars capture orbit.
Fair enough. I thought the question was about near-term cost and mission architecture, not optimistic forecast future costs based on infrastructure that hasn't been announced yet. That's an entirely different thing.
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I don't disagree that my number is high, but natural gas contains a lot more than just methane, right? Surely there's some added cost for purification, liquification, transportation and storage.
The source I cited said $1 was common per MMBTU in the market right now for liquefaction. (about 50% premium).
The texas refinery I mentioned is to produce LNG, right next to Boca Chica.
Natural gas does have some impurities.
But, nearly all of these condense out early in the liquefaction process (you do not do it all at once for efficiency reasons).
LNG doesn't contain any water, CO2, ...
http://www.desfa.gr/en/regulated-services/lng/users-information-lng/quality-specifications - is an example of a LNG specification.
It seems likely to me that ~3% butane and pentane will substantially crash out if simply cryocooled for an extended period. (Or if not, they may simply burn)
The remnant impurity is N2 - which seems of limited concern.
https://www.aga.org/sites/default/files/legacy-assets/our-issues/natural-gas-vehicles/Documents/TIAX%20LNG%20Full%20Report.pdf contains mention of nitrogen reduction units deployed in the US, I have not investigated this.
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You appear to be using $1400/ton for the cost of methane - this is the top google result for the cost of methane - but is not actually the cost of methane, it's some 'social cost'.
FWIW, the $1.35 / kg number I was using came from this 2016 article at The Space Review:
http://www.thespacereview.com/article/2893/1
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You appear to be using $1400/ton for the cost of methane - this is the top google result for the cost of methane - but is not actually the cost of methane, it's some 'social cost'.
FWIW, the $1.35 / kg number I was using came from this 2016 article at The Space Review:
http://www.thespacereview.com/article/2893/1
They also seem to think that Merlin burns gasoline, so... yeah.
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You appear to be using $1400/ton for the cost of methane - this is the top google result for the cost of methane - but is not actually the cost of methane, it's some 'social cost'.
FWIW, the $1.35 / kg number I was using came from this 2016 article at The Space Review:
http://www.thespacereview.com/article/2893/1
They also seem to think that Merlin burns gasoline, so... yeah.
I didn't read it that way, but whatever.
From the article: "The methane-burning Raptor engine’s vacuum specific impulse of 363 seconds is higher than the kerosene-burning Merlin 1D’s 348 seconds."
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I explained this somewhere else. Natural gas is about 95% pure methane. If you put liquid natural gas in a tank, the impurities go either to the top or to the bottom of the tank. You can draw off the middle of the tank and get pure methane. This is not a problem getting pure methane. Water in the gaseous state of natural gas goes to the bottom as well as any minor heavier hydrocarbons. Helium and hydrogen goes to the top. Again, it is 95% methane so the impurities take just a little space at each end of a storage tank.
In my company each town station receiving natural gas before it goes into the town's distribution system has what we called a border or town station. At these stations we had what we called separators. This was nothing but a large pipe stood vertically. The raw gas entered the separator 3'-4' (about a meter) from the bottom. The bottom had a cap welded on the end of this pipe. There was a small valve on the bottom. This was opened every few months to drain out any water or liquid hydrocarbons that was floating in the gas. The gas exited about 3-4' from the top. The top was vented to release helium or hydrogen occasionally. The gas coming into town was almost pure methane, except then we added odorant for safety which was very little.
Again methane is not hard to separate out of natural gas. Also natural gas is the lowest cost of any hydrocarbon and the US has a 200 year supply already drilled, tapped, and tied into the distribution system of the US. We have enough to sustain an extensive Mars colonization program for years.
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I explained this somewhere else. Natural gas is about 95% pure methane. If you put liquid natural gas in a tank, the impurities go either to the top or to the bottom of the tank. You can draw off the middle of the tank and get pure methane. This is not a problem getting pure methane. Water in the gaseous state of natural gas goes to the bottom as well as any minor heavier hydrocarbons. Helium and hydrogen goes to the top. Again, it is 95% methane so the impurities take just a little space at each end of a storage tank.
In my company each town station receiving natural gas before it goes into the town's distribution system has what we called a border or town station. At these stations we had what we called separators. This was nothing but a large pipe stood vertically. The raw gas entered the separator 3'-4' (about a meter) from the bottom. The bottom had a cap welded on the end of this pipe. There was a small valve on the bottom. This was opened every few months to drain out any water or liquid hydrocarbons that was floating in the gas. The gas exited about 3-4' from the top. The top was vented to release helium or hydrogen occasionally. The gas coming into town was almost pure methane, except then we added odorant for safety which was very little.
Again methane is not hard to separate out of natural gas. Also natural gas is the lowest cost of any hydrocarbon and the US has a 200 year supply already drilled, tapped, and tied into the distribution system of the US. We have enough to sustain an extensive Mars colonization program for years.
I didn't mean to imply that purification of natural gas was a problem or that it was difficult to do.
I'm also not personally aware of the methane purity requirements to use it as rocket fuel. I only suggested that enough purification to turn natural gas into rocket fuel might mean that methane has a higher price than natural gas.
If a density-driven process like you describe results in a pure enough product, it sounds simple and inexpensive, which is great.
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That would be enough to send 100 t to Mars, which puts the fuel-only cost at $19.4M / 100 t = $194 per kg. Call it $200 / kg.
YMMV.
Notwithstanding the other responses that may indicate that this cost is somewhat 'off beam', to allow my little brain to understand what this cost may mean ...
I weigh something over 200 lbs, let's say 100kg :-\. So at this price the cost of transporting my mass to Mars would be about $20,000.
Without any legitimate basis for the estimate, let's estimate that the cost of the various 'stuff' to keep me alive, fed and watered between Earth and Mars is about the same. this would put the approximate cost in the region of $40,000,
A margin (got to make a profit somewhere) of 100% would mean a ticket in the range of $80,000 one way.
A one-way, first class ticket from LAX to London Heathrow is around $15,000 (sometimes as low as $10,000)
So a ticket from Earth to Mars may possibly be only six times the cost of travelling (first class) between LAX and LHR
Perhaps not an apples - apples comparison as the air ticket cost includes an element for paying for the aircraft, but for space travel that sounds pretty 'unreasonably cheap' to me - even though it would be something of a stretch on my pension ;)
P.S. For us mere mortals that would be travelling cattle-class (LAX - LHR one way about $2500) that would be a multiplier of about 36 :o
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That would be enough to send 100 t to Mars, which puts the fuel-only cost at $19.4M / 100 t = $194 per kg. Call it $200 / kg.
YMMV.
Notwithstanding the other responses that may indicate that this cost is somewhat 'off beam', to allow my little brain to understand what this cost may mean ...
I weigh something over 200 lbs, let's say 100kg :-\. So at this price the cost of transporting my mass to Mars would be about $20,000.
Without any legitimate basis for the estimate, let's estimate that the cost of the various 'stuff' to keep me alive, fed and watered between Earth and Mars is about the same. this would put the approximate cost in the region of $40,000,
A margin (got to make a profit somewhere) of 100% would mean a ticket in the range of $80,000 one way.
A one-way, first class ticket from LAX to London Heathrow is around $15,000 (sometimes as low as $10,000)
So a ticket from Earth to Mars may possibly be only six times the cost of travelling (first class) between LAX and LHR
Perhaps not an apples - apples comparison as the air ticket cost includes an element for paying for the aircraft, but for space travel that sounds pretty 'unreasonably cheap' to me - even though it would be something of a stretch on my pension ;)
P.S. For us mere mortals that would be travelling cattle-class (LAX - LHR one way about $2500) that would be a multiplier of about 36 :o
Musk said at one time that his goal was for someone to be able to go to Mars (and back) for the cost of a median-priced home -- about $200,000. With a ship cargo capacity of 100 t and 100 passengers, that's 1 t per person -- 1000 kg for yourself, your luggage, belongings, food, water, air and so on. Presumably the price would include 2+ yrs of lodging as well (4 to 7 months each way in space, plus ~18 months on Mars).
$200,000 / 1000 kg = $200 per kg.
With some hand-waving, if you assume my original estimate for fuel cost was off by at least a factor of 2, then apply a factor of 2 to account for ship cost and profit, it could be about right.
However, Musk later said that initial flights might cost much more, with a "near term" goal of ~$500K per person, or $500 / kg, although that was back in the days of carbon fiber, so we may be back to the original numbers now.
I've been estimating $2M per person for early flights, with a $500K target within, say, 3 or 4 synods -- but truly, it's all guesswork at this stage.
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I explained this somewhere else. Natural gas is about 95% pure methane. If you put liquid natural gas in a tank, the impurities go either to the top or to the bottom of the tank. You can draw off the middle of the tank and get pure methane. This is not a problem getting pure methane. Water in the gaseous state of natural gas goes to the bottom as well as any minor heavier hydrocarbons. Helium and hydrogen goes to the top. Again, it is 95% methane so the impurities take just a little space at each end of a storage tank.
In my company each town station receiving natural gas before it goes into the town's distribution system has what we called a border or town station. At these stations we had what we called separators. This was nothing but a large pipe stood vertically. The raw gas entered the separator 3'-4' (about a meter) from the bottom. The bottom had a cap welded on the end of this pipe. There was a small valve on the bottom. This was opened every few months to drain out any water or liquid hydrocarbons that was floating in the gas. The gas exited about 3-4' from the top. The top was vented to release helium or hydrogen occasionally. The gas coming into town was almost pure methane, except then we added odorant for safety which was very little.
Again methane is not hard to separate out of natural gas. Also natural gas is the lowest cost of any hydrocarbon and the US has a 200 year supply already drilled, tapped, and tied into the distribution system of the US. We have enough to sustain an extensive Mars colonization program for years.
I didn't mean to imply that purification of natural gas was a problem or that it was difficult to do.
I'm also not personally aware of the methane purity requirements to use it as rocket fuel. I only suggested that enough purification to turn natural gas into rocket fuel might mean that methane has a higher price than natural gas.
If a density-driven process like you describe results in a pure enough product, it sounds simple and inexpensive, which is great.
Using natural gas means burning fossil fuels which hads to climate change. The alternative which Elon has mention is processing methane from water and CO2. The energy required can come from solar farms and CO2 from atmosphere or surplus from industry.
I don't have figures for energy required to produce kg of LCH and LOX but for LH and LOX its about 7kwh. Electrolysis to produce H needing bulk of this energy. LCH and LOX maybe closer to 5kwh as there is less H per kg. At 5kwh kg a 1000MW solar farm can produce 200mt an hour. Enough to launch every few days.
This would elimate climate change issues but doesn't address damage to upper atomsphere from lots of launches. I've heard this could be an issue but don't any information on it.
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I explained this somewhere else. Natural gas is about 95% pure methane. If you put liquid natural gas in a tank, the impurities go either to the top or to the bottom of the tank. You can draw off the middle of the tank and get pure methane. This is not a problem getting pure methane. Water in the gaseous state of natural gas goes to the bottom as well as any minor heavier hydrocarbons. Helium and hydrogen goes to the top. Again, it is 95% methane so the impurities take just a little space at each end of a storage tank.
In my company each town station receiving natural gas before it goes into the town's distribution system has what we called a border or town station. At these stations we had what we called separators. This was nothing but a large pipe stood vertically. The raw gas entered the separator 3'-4' (about a meter) from the bottom. The bottom had a cap welded on the end of this pipe. There was a small valve on the bottom. This was opened every few months to drain out any water or liquid hydrocarbons that was floating in the gas. The gas exited about 3-4' from the top. The top was vented to release helium or hydrogen occasionally. The gas coming into town was almost pure methane, except then we added odorant for safety which was very little.
Again methane is not hard to separate out of natural gas. Also natural gas is the lowest cost of any hydrocarbon and the US has a 200 year supply already drilled, tapped, and tied into the distribution system of the US. We have enough to sustain an extensive Mars colonization program for years.
I didn't mean to imply that purification of natural gas was a problem or that it was difficult to do.
I'm also not personally aware of the methane purity requirements to use it as rocket fuel. I only suggested that enough purification to turn natural gas into rocket fuel might mean that methane has a higher price than natural gas.
If a density-driven process like you describe results in a pure enough product, it sounds simple and inexpensive, which is great.
Using natural gas means burning fossil fuels which hads to climate change. The alternative which Elon has mention is processing methane from water and CO2. The energy required can come from solar farms and CO2 from atmosphere or surplus from industry.
I don't have figures for energy required to produce kg of LCH and LOX but for LH and LOX its about 7kwh. Electrolysis to produce H needing bulk of this energy. LCH and LOX maybe closer to 5kwh as there is less H per kg. At 5kwh kg a 1000MW solar farm can produce 200mt an hour. Enough to launch every few days.
If Tesla is purchasing any fossil based power for cars, and it is possible to shift any of that to Solar - at a reasonable efficiency - this may be the most efficient way to do things, rather than trying to produce methane.
The best fossil fuel case - NG to electricity - is 50% efficiency.
This means if you end with 1kWh, you have 2kWh (thermal) worth of methane going in to a conventional power station, but if your production is 50% efficient making methane, you get 0.5kWh out.
If you replace power from that NG power station with solar, at anything over 25% system efficiency, that's a win.
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I explained this somewhere else. Natural gas is about 95% pure methane. If you put liquid natural gas in a tank, the impurities go either to the top or to the bottom of the tank. You can draw off the middle of the tank and get pure methane. This is not a problem getting pure methane. Water in the gaseous state of natural gas goes to the bottom as well as any minor heavier hydrocarbons. Helium and hydrogen goes to the top. Again, it is 95% methane so the impurities take just a little space at each end of a storage tank.
In my company each town station receiving natural gas before it goes into the town's distribution system has what we called a border or town station. At these stations we had what we called separators. This was nothing but a large pipe stood vertically. The raw gas entered the separator 3'-4' (about a meter) from the bottom. The bottom had a cap welded on the end of this pipe. There was a small valve on the bottom. This was opened every few months to drain out any water or liquid hydrocarbons that was floating in the gas. The gas exited about 3-4' from the top. The top was vented to release helium or hydrogen occasionally. The gas coming into town was almost pure methane, except then we added odorant for safety which was very little.
Again methane is not hard to separate out of natural gas. Also natural gas is the lowest cost of any hydrocarbon and the US has a 200 year supply already drilled, tapped, and tied into the distribution system of the US. We have enough to sustain an extensive Mars colonization program for years.
I didn't mean to imply that purification of natural gas was a problem or that it was difficult to do.
I'm also not personally aware of the methane purity requirements to use it as rocket fuel. I only suggested that enough purification to turn natural gas into rocket fuel might mean that methane has a higher price than natural gas.
If a density-driven process like you describe results in a pure enough product, it sounds simple and inexpensive, which is great.
Using natural gas means burning fossil fuels which hads to climate change. The alternative which Elon has mention is processing methane from water and CO2. The energy required can come from solar farms and CO2 from atmosphere or surplus from industry.
I don't have figures for energy required to produce kg of LCH and LOX but for LH and LOX its about 7kwh. Electrolysis to produce H needing bulk of this energy. LCH and LOX maybe closer to 5kwh as there is less H per kg. At 5kwh kg a 1000MW solar farm can produce 200mt an hour. Enough to launch every few days.
If Tesla is purchasing any fossil based power for cars, and it is possible to shift any of that to Solar - at a reasonable efficiency - this may be the most efficient way to do things, rather than trying to produce methane.
The best fossil fuel case - NG to electricity - is 50% efficiency.
This means if you end with 1kWh, you have 2kWh (thermal) worth of methane going in to a conventional power station, but if your production is 50% efficient making methane, you get 0.5kWh out.
If you replace power from that NG power station with solar, at anything over 25% system efficiency, that's a win.
I see where you are coming from about using solar electric to offset burning of NG for LVs. The climate change people won't see it that way, they would say better not to launch and not burn any NG.
Long term space is our best means of counter climate change with either or both space solar power station and large sunshades. ULA are the only ones pushing this, Bezos hasn't and Musk isn't fan of SSP says its inefficient.
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I see Elon commented on SS manufacturing cost on Twitter today. Someone speculated that SS costs about $35m, based on $5m material and labour costs and 3x$10m for the three Raptor engines.
Elon responded that current Raptor cost is already well below $1m per unit and v2 is aiming for $250k.
Interesting. (Apologies, I don’t know how to link or embed a tweet from my phone.)
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From https://spacenews.com/elon-musk-space-pitch-day/ (https://spacenews.com/elon-musk-space-pitch-day/)
A single Starship will expend about $900,00 worth of fuel and oxygen for pressurization to send “at least 100 tons, probably 150 tons to orbit,” Musk said. SpaceX’s cost to operate Starship will be around $2 million per flight, which is “much less than even a tiny rocket,” he added.
So going off these numbers what does this imply? I'd love to read your comments.
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I have been wondering if that $900,000 is the cost with the propellant trucked to Boca Chica? That seems to be the least expensive method for the initial low rates of launch, (limited infrastructure costs) but if the plans for Mars hold, there may be a less expensive way to get the prop to the launch site in volume. They would have infrastructure cost where there is very little infrastructure needed for trucking it in but long term perhaps there would be a less expensive way:
- Pipeline to the site. It probably would need to be liquified on site as well as volume on-site storage.
- Small LNG tanker. It would require an at sea terminal and insolated pipeline to the launch site, as well as on-site storage, but not liquification.
Of course, there is still the question of whether or not an "at sea" launch platform will be built. And also, how much does it cost to truck the prop in, as a percent of the total cost of the load?
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From https://spacenews.com/elon-musk-space-pitch-day/ (https://spacenews.com/elon-musk-space-pitch-day/)
A single Starship will expend about $900,00 worth of fuel and oxygen for pressurization to send “at least 100 tons, probably 150 tons to orbit,” Musk said. SpaceX’s cost to operate Starship will be around $2 million per flight, which is “much less than even a tiny rocket,” he added.
So going off these numbers what does this imply? I'd love to read your comments.
It means the space race is on.
It means Starlink is cheap to put up.
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From https://spacenews.com/elon-musk-space-pitch-day/ (https://spacenews.com/elon-musk-space-pitch-day/)
A single Starship will expend about $900,00 worth of fuel and oxygen for pressurization to send “at least 100 tons, probably 150 tons to orbit,” Musk said. SpaceX’s cost to operate Starship will be around $2 million per flight, which is “much less than even a tiny rocket,” he added.
So going off these numbers what does this imply? I'd love to read your comments.
It means the space race is on.
It means Starlink is cheap to put up.
Do we know where the other $1.1 million will go, exactly?
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From https://spacenews.com/elon-musk-space-pitch-day/ (https://spacenews.com/elon-musk-space-pitch-day/)
A single Starship will expend about $900,00 worth of fuel and oxygen for pressurization to send “at least 100 tons, probably 150 tons to orbit,” Musk said. SpaceX’s cost to operate Starship will be around $2 million per flight, which is “much less than even a tiny rocket,” he added.
So going off these numbers what does this imply? I'd love to read your comments.
It means the space race is on.
It means Starlink is cheap to put up.
Do we know where the other $1.1 million will go, exactly?
Amortization of initial vehicle cost, plus GSE and operational costs?
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$900k is a hella lotta methane and O2! Anyone know off the top of their head which of the two is more expensive?
Truly mind-boggling though when implied cost estimates for SLS could be pushing $2B per flight. $2B vs $2M...I'm not a mathematician but I'm pretty sure that's 1,000x cheaper. Even if off by a magnitude that's an astonishing delta.
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$900k is a hella lotta methane and O2! Anyone know off the top of their head which of the two is more expensive?
Truly mind-boggling though when implied cost estimates for SLS could be pushing $2B per flight. $2B vs $2M...I'm not a mathematician but I'm pretty sure that's 1,000x cheaper. Even if off by a magnitude that's an astonishing delta.
Yeah, if the 150 ton to LEO figure is right then that's $13.33 per kg to orbit. If SLS was $15,400 for the same (at $2bn a launch and 130 ton payload), then that's pretty much eleven hundred to twelve hundred times cheaper. Imagine a gallon of milk costing two thousand dollars at the grocery store. Next to a two dollar gallon on the same shelf. And the mayor is forcing you to buy the expensive one.
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$900k is a hella lotta methane and O2! Anyone know off the top of their head which of the two is more expensive?
Truly mind-boggling though when implied cost estimates for SLS could be pushing $2B per flight. $2B vs $2M...I'm not a mathematician but I'm pretty sure that's 1,000x cheaper. Even if off by a magnitude that's an astonishing delta.
LNG is cheap, but still - Methane, by a lot. Liquid oxygen is dirt cheap.
Hydrogen is more expensive than methane, but fuel / oxidizer costs for SLS will be low as well, probably in the neighborhood of $2 million or even somewhat less. Fuel costs are typically a rounding error in the cost for a launch :p Starship is the only rocket I know of where that's not true.
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Okay, $900K for propellant and $2M for operations (Elon didn't specify if operations included propellant costs).
What's missing is the spacecraft cost per launch. Just picking numbers out of thin air, if SS/SH cost $100M to build, than it's $10M per flight for 10 flights and $1M per flight for 100 flights. This doesn't include R&D costs per spacecraft or launch pad costs.
Depending on what numbers you use, SS/SH will easily be cheaper than F9. But it's not going to be only $2M per flight.
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I've mentioned before that I worked for a natural gas company. To me the easiest and cheapest way to get methane to an offshore platform is a pipeline. Run a natural gas pipeline across the ocean floor to the launch pad site. Have liquid methane equipment mounted under the landing pad with storage tanks. Same with lox equipment. No need for a ship, no need for an onshore facility and then transport it to the pad. Offshore pad would be fairly large. Have a hyperloop transport system onshore going to the offshore facility. People can come in and park at a parking garage or parking lot and/or have car rental facilities onshore. Hyperloop can get passengers to the offshore pad very quickly and back. No need or a boat which would be slower.
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When you look at a magician that does a slight of hand trick that takes 3 seconds it just appears so effortless and simple. What you don't see is the 4 1/2 years he has tried to perfect that 3 second trick. Anybody after all can go to a shop and buy that trick. But perfecting it is the devil in the details aspect.
Just because SpaceX makes reusable rockets "appear" simple doesnt mean it is simple.
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Boca Chica could get liquid methane piped to the site in a few years. There are several LNG terminals going in 5 or 6 miles away.
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The engines will be the most expensive part of Starship. Someone said they were to cost $2 million each. 37 on the booster and 6 on the Starship = $86 million. Say double that for a complete Starship/Superheavy =$172 million. I think it was also said a complete system would be $200-250 million. Seems reasonable and cheaper $/kg to orbit than F9/FH.
Infrastructure is going to be expensive. At the cape and Boca Chica. Offshore facilities, liquification and storage equipment. How much is this going to cost? Anyone know?
Hopefully Starlink can bring in some money quickly.
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The engines will be the most expensive part of Starship. Someone said they were to cost $2 million each. 37 on the booster and 6 on the Starship = $86 million. Say double that for a complete Starship/Superheavy =$172 million. I think it was also said a complete system would be $200-250 million. Seems reasonable and cheaper $/kg to orbit than F9/FH.
Infrastructure is going to be expensive. At the cape and Boca Chica. Offshore facilities, liquification and storage equipment. How much is this going to cost? Anyone know?
Hopefully Starlink can bring in some money quickly.
Elon Musk said the Raptors will be significantly less than a million dollars.
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Remember, SpaceX's ultimate goal is in situ resources. That is not just on Mars, but on Earth too. He has mentioned creating methane onsite, only requiring water, air and energy to do it. This could function as a demo for a Mars fuel making system. This would also make launches carbon neutral, since they would be pulling carbon out of the air to do it. This may happen sooner then we think. I think Elon would rather spend money on this, than running pipelines to the launch site.
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The engines will be the most expensive part of Starship. Someone said they were to cost $2 million each. 37 on the booster and 6 on the Starship = $86 million. Say double that for a complete Starship/Superheavy =$172 million. I think it was also said a complete system would be $200-250 million. Seems reasonable and cheaper $/kg to orbit than F9/FH.
Infrastructure is going to be expensive. At the cape and Boca Chica. Offshore facilities, liquification and storage equipment. How much is this going to cost? Anyone know?
Hopefully Starlink can bring in some money quickly.
Elon Musk said the Raptors will be significantly less than a million dollars.
He said under $200,000 each.
Edit: Link https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1143026166112108544?lang=en (https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1143026166112108544?lang=en)
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There is a newer tweet on Raptor cost.
https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1179107539352313856
So Raptor is presently probably in the $1million range.
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Making methane uses a lot of electricity, right now it is about 2-3 times the cost of drilling for natural gas. It has to be done on Mars, but not on earth, unless Musk builds a huge bank of solar panels at Boca Chica as traditional electricity costs more than natural gas for the same amount of usable energy. 30% of electricity is made from burning natural gas in jet engine powered generators supplying the grid. Makes no economic sense to make methane on earth, not yet anyway, not for the tremendous volume needed to launch a flotilla of Starships to Mars each synod.
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First thing is to make a LOX plant on site. Pretty straightforward.
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Making methane uses a lot of electricity, right now it is about 2-3 times the cost of drilling for natural gas. It has to be done on Mars, but not on earth, unless Musk builds a huge bank of solar panels at Boca Chica as traditional electricity costs more than natural gas for the same amount of usable energy. 30% of electricity is made from burning natural gas in jet engine powered generators supplying the grid. Makes no economic sense to make methane on earth, not yet anyway, not for the tremendous volume needed to launch a flotilla of Starships to Mars each synod.
The original plan had a 7-8 Mw solar field in Boca Chica but I think they're already running up against the limit in how much land they can utilize. They only get to actually use 1/3 of what they own.
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How about this for making Methane.
https://www.tno.nl/en/about-tno/news/2019/4/sunlight-used-to-convert-co2-to-methane-extremely-efficiently/
There is also method for splitting H20 using sunlight, not sure if they've got it pass lab stage. This could provide H gas.
Using H gas as is on earth would be more useful than converting it to Methane.
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Remember, SpaceX's ultimate goal is in situ resources. That is not just on Mars, but on Earth too. He has mentioned creating methane onsite, only requiring water, air and energy to do it. This could function as a demo for a Mars fuel making system. This would also make launches carbon neutral, since they would be pulling carbon out of the air to do it. This may happen sooner then we think. I think Elon would rather spend money on this, than running pipelines to the launch site.
It might provide some PR but it makes no sense economically. Especially while any fossil power stations are still in existence. It would be far more efficient to replace those with solar and battery capability instead of trying to extract CO2 from the atmosphere. Even if some sort of demo was to be built it would be far more efficient to use the exhaust gas from a fossil power station as the source of CO2 rather than trying to extract it from the 400ppm in the atmosphere.
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And if you are launching from anywhere in the Gulf, couldn't you get a load of methane directly from a floating oil platform? Or does it have to be refined?
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Natural gas really doesn't have to be refined, filtered maybe. You can pump liquid methane out of the center of a liquid natural gas tank. The impurites go to the top or to the bottom of the tank. It is not an oil based product. It is however found in the top of oil domes underground, in coal seams, in shale rock formations and sometimes by itself. It is so plentiful in the US that if we didn't drill or frack another well we could go about 200 years. It costs far more to make it than to drill it.
I worked with a natural gas company, we looked at all kinds of alternatives. Drilling and fracking always was the cheapest route. We can make it from dairy farms and feed lots, sewage, and from algae. All were more expensive. Making it from air and water is by far the most expensive route ON EARTH. Not on Mars, thus making it on mars for the return.
If Musk trys to make it using solar panels, it is for a publicity stunt only. Just not cost effective.
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...
If Musk trys to make it using solar panels, it is for a publicity stunt only. Just not cost effective.
To be fair, if Musk does it the most likely reason is to advance the TRL so it actually works reliably on Mars when we get there.
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Testing for Mars is one thing. Sending flotilias of Starships that have to be refueled quickly, especially the boosters, is another. Making methane with solar panels to test Mars equipment is another. Making methane with solar panels will be a slow process. Not happening quickly. Texas makes about 80% of their grid power by burning natural gas in jet engine turbine generators. For a huge number of launches, just liquify the natural gas and pull the methane from it. Natural gas is about 95% methane anyway, not many impurities.
For Mars, they need to design and build the robotic installed equipment that can fit inside a Starship and be less than 150 tons. Then go to a cold northern desert and test the production capabilities of making lox and liquid methane, with screens over the solar panels to be closer to Mars sunlight conditions.
As far as Starship production being cheap. Using field welded stainless steel is fairly cheap. Most expensive part of the rocket will be the engines, thrusters, and hydraulics for fin controls.
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For Mars, they need to design and build the robotic installed equipment that can fit inside a Starship and be less than 150 tons. Then go to a cold northern desert and test the production capabilities of making lox and liquid methane, with screens over the solar panels to be closer to Mars sunlight conditions.
I'm not sure how much testing at 14psi and .04% CO2 is going to tell you about performance at .1psi and 95% CO2.
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*snip*
I worked with a natural gas company, we looked at all kinds of alternatives. Drilling and fracking always was the cheapest route. We can make it from dairy farms and feed lots, sewage, and from algae. All were more expensive. Making it from air and water is by far the most expensive route ON EARTH. Not on Mars, thus making it on mars for the return.
If Musk trys to make it using solar panels, it is for a publicity stunt only. Just not cost effective.
And what is the green way? What is Tesla all about? Making green a reality. Consider this:
https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1192647286997651456
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*snip*
I worked with a natural gas company, we looked at all kinds of alternatives. Drilling and fracking always was the cheapest route. We can make it from dairy farms and feed lots, sewage, and from algae. All were more expensive. Making it from air and water is by far the most expensive route ON EARTH. Not on Mars, thus making it on mars for the return.
If Musk trys to make it using solar panels, it is for a publicity stunt only. Just not cost effective.
And what is the green way? What is Tesla all about? Making green a reality. Consider this:
https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1192647286997651456
It would technically be carbon-negative, since some of that CO2 is being exported off Earth :p
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*snip*
I worked with a natural gas company, we looked at all kinds of alternatives. Drilling and fracking always was the cheapest route. We can make it from dairy farms and feed lots, sewage, and from algae. All were more expensive. Making it from air and water is by far the most expensive route ON EARTH. Not on Mars, thus making it on mars for the return.
If Musk trys to make it using solar panels, it is for a publicity stunt only. Just not cost effective.
And what is the green way? What is Tesla all about? Making green a reality. Consider this:
https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1192647286997651456
It would technically be carbon-negative, since some of that CO2 is being exported off Earth :p
Yes but very little as most of the propellant will be used near Earth to get into orbit or for TLI or TMI and most of that will end up back in the upper atmosphere
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The amount of CO2 from Starship launches is miniscule in comparison to the production of electricity in China, US, and other places from coal. Even the burning of natural gas by 50% of American homes, industry, power production, is still miniscule. We have to colonize Mars, and it must be done as cheap as possible. Using cheap existing natural gas right now is the only pragmatic way. Of all fossil fuels, natural gas (methane) produces the least amount of CO2. We have already drastically reduced America's CO2 output by switching coal fired power plants to natural gas. It is cheaper than wind and also ready 24/7. Vehicles are the next largest CO2 producers. Electrics and hybrids are slowly taking traditional vehicles place. Anyway, they are putting out far more CO2 with kerlox boosters and solids than methane will. Methane is a step in the right direction.
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The amount of CO2 from Starship launches is miniscule in comparison to the production of electricity in China, US, and other places from coal. Even the burning of natural gas by 50% of American homes, industry, power production, is still miniscule. We have to colonize Mars, and it must be done as cheap as possible. Using cheap existing natural gas right now is the only pragmatic way. Of all fossil fuels, natural gas (methane) produces the least amount of CO2. We have already drastically reduced America's CO2 output by switching coal fired power plants to natural gas. It is cheaper than wind and also ready 24/7. Vehicles are the next largest CO2 producers. Electrics and hybrids are slowly taking traditional vehicles place. Anyway, they are putting out far more CO2 with kerlox boosters and solids than methane will. Methane is a step in the right direction.
According to the US Department of Energy it's cheaper to roll out wind than buy natural gas. The mix of wind in the US is still less than half of countries that don't experience blackouts. There's more scope for wind even before you improve energy storage.
https://arstechnica.com/science/2019/08/wind-power-prices-now-lower-than-the-cost-of-natural-gas/
It's definitely too early to be worried about Starship's near term CO2 output. It's barely a cow's fart on global levels. I think SpaceX do have a good chance of making carbon capture work for them long term. Being their own customer helps as much as the engineering talent they can throw at the problem.
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I've read that some windmills have been taken down in Wyoming and elsewhere as they cost too much to maintain.
Anyway, The wind is in the plains, not east of the Mississippi where most of the people in the US live. Gas turbines are quick and easy to set up. The infrastructure hasn't been built to transfer all this wind from the plains to the east. That will cost billions, and no one power company is willing to pay for it. Therein lies a huge problem.
Natural gas pipelines are all over the country. Also, in the very long run, natural gas pipelines can carry hydrogen gas. All gas appliances can be converted to run on hydrogen. The infrastructure is in place.
I'm not here to argue the merits of reducing CO2 emissions, but to show the plain cost of something existing and pragmatic vs, more expensive to manufacture fuel. At least for the near future natural gas will be the supply of methane used for rocket launches.
The two, in my opinion, only real solutions for CO2 emissions are nuclear power and electric or electric/hybrid on vehicles. Solar and wind will just not be enough for the massive amounts of electricity needed for a developed society.
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I worked with a natural gas company, we looked at all kinds of alternatives. Drilling and fracking always was the cheapest route. We can make it from dairy farms and feed lots, sewage, and from algae. All were more expensive. Making it from air and water is by far the most expensive route ON EARTH. Not on Mars, thus making it on mars for the return.
If Musk trys to make it using solar panels, it is for a publicity stunt only. Just not cost effective.
Really it's the "cheapest" So contaminating water and wasting tons upon of tons of fresh water that may be needed for actual consumption in the future is the cheapest? All those cancer clusters around fracking areas are cheap? Using gas that isn't in any way shape or form carbon neutral and contributes to climate change and the eventual collapse of the environment that we have relied on to live in for the past million years is the cheapest?
No it's the cheapest way for the owners of your company to shit on the rest of us long term and make themselves rich in the process while most likely destroying any hope for future generations. If every new home built, every apartment building constructed were required to have solar panels as roofing we would soon be able to soon power a large chunk of the country. If half the existing houses added solar panels most likely in a decade or two we could power the country. Such short sighted idiocy as saying fracking for natural gas is cheapest just makes my blood boil. But I'm driving this off topic.
If Musk goes with solar, it's not a stunt, it's an intelligent move for the future of the world.
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I worked with a natural gas company, we looked at all kinds of alternatives. Drilling and fracking always was the cheapest route. We can make it from dairy farms and feed lots, sewage, and from algae. All were more expensive. Making it from air and water is by far the most expensive route ON EARTH. Not on Mars, thus making it on mars for the return.
If Musk trys to make it using solar panels, it is for a publicity stunt only. Just not cost effective.
Really it's the "cheapest" So contaminating water and wasting tons upon of tons of fresh water that may be needed for actual consumption in the future is the cheapest? All those cancer clusters around fracking areas are cheap? Using gas that isn't in any way shape or form carbon neutral and contributes to climate change and the eventual collapse of the environment that we have relied on to live in for the past million years is the cheapest?
No it's the cheapest way for the owners of your company to shit on the rest of us long term and make themselves rich in the process while most likely destroying any hope for future generations. If every new home built, every apartment building constructed were required to have solar panels as roofing we would soon be able to soon power a large chunk of the country. If half the existing houses added solar panels most likely in a decade or two we could power the country. Such short sighted idiocy as saying fracking for natural gas is cheapest just makes my blood boil. But I'm driving this off topic.
If Musk goes with solar, it's not a stunt, it's an intelligent move for the future of the world.
And to continue this OT discussion.
The east coast has a huge potential offshore wind turbine resource. The power will be provided exactly where needed.
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Reality check here. Musk needs to test in situ resource for making methane. He's also associated with a solar business and tends to do synergistic plays between them. Most of Elon's companies have technology to use on Mars eventually. He also wants to do right for the environment on earth. It's all related.
He will likely produce some methane via solar panels for Starships. This will validate the process, and will be able to use his solar business production and technology. He will not use wind, as there isn't enough on Mars to do anything with. He will likely improve the solar panels and production technology along the way, and expand as he is able. This is not about cost here, it's about technology and reducing carbon footprint.
Will it be enough to launch a huge number of Starships? Probably not. But every bit counts and the tech will be invaluable for Mars. Mostly likely a mixture of solar generated methane and existing methane will be used for Starship/SH.
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I understand it very well
The question is how do you end making a rocket engine in 12 hours, from previous 2 weeks. You will need a very incredible breakthrough in design or manufacture. I don' t see anything in raptor that makes me think that was achieved or will be achieved.
You might like to search for "Single digit hour press tool change" in the automotive industry.
Pioneered by the Japanese in (IIRC) the 1980's.
Possible since the 1930's.
But only the Japanese had the desire to do it and the will to make it happen.
No new technology required*
*Thanks to Jon Goff for that example.
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Natural gas pipelines are all over the country. Also, in the very long run, natural gas pipelines can carry hydrogen gas. All gas appliances can be converted to run on hydrogen. The infrastructure is in place.
Read up on Hydrogen embrittlement.