Copyright 2025 Robert Clark
The new era of heavy launch.
By Gary Oleson
The Space Review
July 24, 2023
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4626/1
The author Gary Oleson discusses the implications of SpaceX achieving their goal of cutting the costs to orbit to the $100 per kilo range. His key point was costs to orbit in the $100 per kilo range will be transformative not just for spaceflight but because of what capabilities it will unlock, actually transformative for society as a whole.
For instance, arguments against space solar power note how expensive it is transporting large mass to orbit. But at $100/kg launch rates, gigawatt scale space solar plants could be launched for less than a billion dollars. This is notable because gigawatt scale nuclear power plants cost multiple billions of dollars. Space solar power plants would literally be cheaper than nuclear power plants.
Oleson makes other key points in his article. For instance:
The Starship cost per kilogram is so low that it is likely to enable large-scale expansion of industries in space. For perspective, compare the cost of Starship launches to shipping with FedEx. If most of Starship’s huge capacity was used, costs to orbit that start around $200 per kilogram might trend toward $100 per kilogram and below. A recent price for shipping a 10-kilogram package from Washington, DC, to Sydney, Australia, was $69 per kilogram. The price for a 100-kilogram package was $122 per kilogram. It’s hard to imagine the impact of shipping to LEO for FedEx prices.
Sending a package via orbit transpacific flight would not only take less than an hour compared to a full day via aircraft, it would actually be *cheaper*.
Note this also applies to passenger flights: anywhere in the world at less than an hour, compared to a full day travel time for the longer transpacific flights, and at lower cost for those longer transpacific flights.
Oleson Concludes:
What could you do with 150 metric tons in LEO for $10 million?
The new heavy launchers will relax mass, volume, and launch cost as constraints for many projects. Everyone who is concerned with future space projects should begin asking what will be possible. Given the time it will take to develop projects large enough to take advantage of the new capabilities, there could be huge first mover advantages. If you don’t seize the opportunity, your competitors or adversaries might. Space launch at FedEx prices will change the world.
These are the implications of SpaceX succeeding at this goal. However, a surprising fact is SpaceX already has this *capability* now! They only need to implement it:
SpaceX routine orbital passenger flights imminent.
http://exoscientist.blogspot.com/2024/11/spacex-routine-orbital-passenger.html
Bob Clark
2 comments:
Using super heavy lift vehicles for the rapid transcontinental transport of passengers would be commercially unlikely, IMO, since people are usually on schedules. And rocket launches are rarely on schedule with often hours, days, weeks, and even months of delays.
Flown expendably, Falcon-Heavy delivers about 63 metric tons to low-inclination LEO. Flown reusably, it might deliver roughly half that, or about 32 metric tons. The price paid to launch on one reusably is somewhere around $90 million. $90 million / 32,000 kfg = about $2800/kg. I presume it is similar for smaller payloads with Falcon-9. And that price range is the lowest in the industry, which is why SpaceX has come to dominate it. But it is still nowhere near $100/kg!
SpaceX has a long way yet to go before its Starship/Superheavy vehicle is ready for use. There is no guarantee that the project will ever fully succeed at all. There is no reliable pricing information for Starship/Superheavy, nothing but guesses and unwarranted hype. But supposedly it will eventually be able to deliver about 150 metric tons to low inclination LEO. Maybe it will eventually prove to be that capable, and maybe not.
So, what you get for the price per kilogram depends entirely upon what you assume the launch price might be (and what the payload capability finally proves to be).
If $200 million/launch, $200 million/150,000 kg = $1333/kg (about half the Falcon-Heavy).
If $20 million per launch, $20 million/150,000 kg = $133/kg (near the enabling $100/kg).
If $2 million (something Musk once claimed), $13/kg. I don’t believe this for a minute!
I doubt any of those figures is yet supportable in any way, shape, or form! But if Starship/Superheavy could be priced in the $15-20 million per launch range, and achieve its intended payload capacity of 150 metric tons to low-inclination LEO, then the enabling ~$100/kg figure in the article finally becomes feasible. I have my doubts, but we will see.
--- GW
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