Re:SpaceX successfully lands its sixth Falcon 9 rocket after...
by manicdee on Sunday August 14, 2016 @09:40PM
(#12288152)
There is no reason for SpaceX to reduce launch costs for customers who insist on freshly minted launchers.
Charge the sustainable rate for all launches, except those who demand new rockets.
Eventually customers will stop demanding new rockets.
Oops, I mixed up two seperate points and can no longer edit the comment: I should clarify this math is for selling re-usable launches from scratch. Assuming two (and only two) launches per first stage with zero dollar refurbishment, SpaceX can sell two launches at $39 million and achieve the same profit, a 35% discount to customer. This is what will happen in the longer term: there may not be any full priced $60 million flights, so even the first flight of a booster will be re-usable pricing.
That said, currently we're in a weird place where existing customers are paying the full price ($60 million) for a freshly manufactured rocket, but subsequent re-use customers technically need only pay $18 million. While SpaceX could give a giant discount to all secondary customers this is not a long term pricing strategy because it requires a prior customer to "pay off" the first stage with a fully priced launch, which won't happen in the future. (SpaceX likely eventually needs to price closer to the amortized value for all customers -- even the first, if they want to achieve their goals of reducing prices, gaining more of the existing launch market and increasing demand).