Hyperloop One Becomes ‘Virgin Hyperloop One’

Re:Hyperloop One Becomes ‘Virgin Hyperloop One’ by Rebelgecko on Thursday October 12, 2017 @02:17PM (#15459997)

Where are you pulling those numbers from? On ULA's website [1] they say you can launch an Atlas V for less than half the $/kg you listed

[1] I went to rocketbuilder.com and both LEO configurations I tried were around $8,000/kg (and I didn't count the 20% deduction for "ULA added value" since the numbers there are debatable)

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Re:Hyperloop One Becomes ‘Virgin Hyperloop One’ by nkoren on Thursday October 12, 2017 @06:27PM (#15461804)

ULA has abruptly gotten way more competitive in their pricing. A few years ago they were not. Their "Best deal" for the Atlas V was a 36-rocket "bulk buy" priced the lowest-tier Atlas V 401 at $164M/launch[1]. That does 9,797kg to LEO[2], or $16,740/kg.

The GAO cites $164M/launch as the price for the cheapest Delta V[3] (is there some kind of threshold at $165M?), which when the Falcon 9 was introduced could put 8,500kg to LEO[4], or $19,294/kg. (It has since been uprated and gotten slightly cheaper).

Must've screwed up my calculations earlier, because those aren't tallying. Anyhow, as you can see, SpaceX is already around 7x cheaper compared to where ULA was, and should cross the 10x threshold shortly. Nice to see ULA responding to competitive pressure, however!

1: https://web.archive.org/web/20160324172526/http://www.ulalau...

2: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlas_V

3: http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-17-609

4: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delta_IV#Delta_IV_Small

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Re:Hyperloop One Becomes ‘Virgin Hyperloop One’ by greglindahl on Thursday October 12, 2017 @07:16PM (#15462120)

For the "block buy", that price includes building the rocket but not the launch.

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