The problem is that for Starship to hit that $10M price point, SpaceX will have to demonstrate several as of yet unproven capabilities: In-space refueling (required for any missions outside LEO), safe and reliable re-entry from orbit, and fast turnaround for Starship to be launch-ready after landing. The last thing NASA needs is a glorified Space Shuttle 2.0 that takes months to be rebuilt after each re-entry, and has the constant risk of the crew burning up on re-entry. Fortunately, it's looking increasingly less likely that this will be the case, but NASA is right to not put all of its eggs in the Starship basket.

For what its worth, if Starship does succeed in being a cheap and re-usable super-heavy launcher, NASA can always just stop making SLS (presumably after giving the senators for Alabama sufficiently large bribes) and switch to Starship for super-heavy launches.

Even with SpaceX's accomplishments in dramatically reducing launch costs, the $10M price point is still insane. The Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy advertised prices are ~$50 million and $90 million per launch. The actual launches and mission management for any more custom launch tend to push those prices to almost double. So to assume that a much larger as yet unproven rocket with launch for $10M seems quite out of range with the others. Even if $10M ends up being the material cost, SpaceX will still be recouping their development cost which is significant. Development of the Falcon 9 was $1.6 billion [0] and I think we can assume Starship will be more than that.

[0] https://www.nasa.gov/pdf/586023main_8-3-11_NAFCOM.pdf

Falcon9 still throws away the second stage every time.

The idea of Starship being $10M is that it's fully reusable, so your marginal cost is only fuel/maintenance/launch.

Okay, according to Elon [0] the cost (to SpaceX) of a refurbished Falcon 9 is $15 million, $10 million of which is the upper stage as you say is not re-usable. So $5M for everything else for a rocket that gets 18k lbs to Low-earth-orbit. If we scale that up to the Starship (220k lbs to LEO) then lets estimate a re-use/refurb cost of $61M.

So if a Falcon 9 costs $50M to launch, then 70% of that cost is SpaceX profit/recouping its design cost. Starship is supposed to be even more re-usable so lets assume that they only need 30% of the launch cost for recouping design costs/profit. This would be $87M/launch

So my really aggressive estimate is still almost an order of magnitude higher, which is why I am doubtful. Lets also remember that SpaceX got $396M from NASA for the development of Falcon 9 and Dragon [1]

[0] https://www.elonx.net/how-much-does-it-cost-to-launch-a-reus...

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falcon_9#Conception_and_fundin...

It's a mistake to assume the marginal cost scales linearly with payload. Fuel will (ish), but many other costs are fixed per launch.

I'd argue your estimate is not aggressive. SpaceX continues to claim an eventual marginal cost in the high 7 to low 8 figures per launch. I'm inclined to believe that deep analysis over a back-of-the-comment Fermi estimate.

Even if you assume only basic first stage re-usability (that is well proven). That is still a 200-ton to Orbit launcher for the cost of a Falcon 9 or cheaper.

And for what it is worth, SLS should be canceled no matter if Starship exists or not. Its a program that embodies everything bad about the modern space industry and space policy.

> That is still a 200-ton to Orbit launcher for the cost of a Falcon 9 or cheaper.

If they can't prove rapid reusability for both stages, it's extremely unlikely the cost will be anywhere close to as cheap as current estimates. And if they can't refuel in orbit (which as of now, has only been performed a handful of times with small satellites), Starship will be unable to leave Earth's gravity well.

The current estimate is 2M or maybe 10M.

If the first stage is reusable, having a cargo launcher second stage that is none, reusable can be done for 30M.

First stage reuse is wall proven already.

> Starship will be unable to leave Earth's gravity well.

If its not reusable you can use it like any upper stage and it could launch anything anywhere you want.

> And if they can't refuel in orbit (which as of now, has only been performed a handful of times with small satellites)

The physics is well understood. We do it constantly with non cryogenics.

I really think this is overrated in how much of a technology risk this is. Specially if you have enough weight that you can invest in the solution.

> I really think this is overrated in how much of a technology risk this is. Specially if you have enough weight that you can invest in the solution.

Refueling is a schedule risk, maybe the first design will fail to account for something and it will take a couple iterations to get it right. There is zero risk that the problem is unsolvable.

I would agree mostly. If you need to many iterations you might run out of money however.

In general I think refueling is a far smaller problem then the heat shield.

The heat shield is such a massive component that it's conceivable that the first design is flawed, and resolving the flaw requires a dry mass increase that cuts into the payload and makes a Mars return unachievable.

Several problems with that.

One, it's Congress' baby.. ain't noone taking it out behind the barn.

Second, you need redundancy. If something is proven bad with falcon or starship design... You don't want another situation like we had with the shuttles where your paying for Soyuz seats for years on end while the problem is debugged and mitigated.

Iirc, NASA is trying to shift SLS production to the private sector, to try and "get rid" of this ugly duckling.

> Second, you need redundancy.

No you don't. Just as there was no redundancy for Saturn V. As there is not for Falcon Heavy. There was no redundancy for Delta 4 Heavy. There is always a largest rocket.

And if you do need redundancy, SLS is not how you would get there.

If Starship doesn't work, then there will simply be no moon landing. Period.

> Iirc, NASA is trying to shift SLS production to the private sector, to try and "get rid" of this ugly duckling.

That is just contract mombo jumbo that changes nothing about the actual project.

Once it becomes Somebody Else's Problem, and not NASA's, then NASA can quietly abandon it. Since nobody else will want to pay for even a single launch, it may then die a final death.

> Once it becomes Somebody Else's Problem, and not NASA's, then NASA can quietly abandon it

No, what happens is that you create a seriously powerful group of private institutions that will go full force into lobbying congress to not kill the project. Even more so then now.

What you describe is the present condition.

No, now you have many private groups with slightly different interest temporarly unified. Once you create one gigantic mega contractor, that group has a much more specific and target interested in lobbying for that one specific program.

In other words, no worse than the present condition.

But it would be increasingly awkward for Congress to be seen to force NASA to choose the $2B launcher from vendor A over the $10M or $50M (or whatever) launcher from vendor B.

> NASA is right to not put all of its eggs in the Starship basket.

The problem is that not only are they not putting any eggs into the Starship basket, they aren't even aware (or admitting) that the basket even exists.

>not putting any eggs into the Starship basket

HLS is a $2.89bn egg they have put in the Starship basket.

Citation needed; they are aware, and admitting is down to the PR department. Can't have a government branch openly express support to a corporate party that easily.

A big reason why they selected SpaceX's proposal to use a variation on Starship as the Artemis lunar lander is for NASA to start subsidizing Starship's development.

The SpaceX HLS bid relies on starship working and they won* that award. I think NASA acknowledged the basket and threw 2 billion into it.

It doesn't matter if Starship can't do all of these. It will still be likely cheaper and more capable than NASA's SLS, even if it's capable of only launching one time.

Remember, SpaceX is engineering a production line to make Starship, not just prototyping Starshipp.

> That is still a 200-ton to Orbit launcher for the cost of a Falcon 9 or cheaper.

[citation needed]

Look at how fast they can build an upper stage with basic materials and standard welders from the oil industry.

The engine cost is reportedly already under 1M and they are building a huge factory t produce more.

Even under the worst assumption, where I take conservative assumptions and then double them you still end up with cost comparable to Falcon Heavy.

While I have much dislike for SLS, there is just no way in hell SpaceX will charge $10M for a launch. SpaceX have their own goals which they need funds for and they're not going to under cut their Falcon 9 that intensely like that. That's not to say that Starship won't be the best price per ton of payload to orbit. But let's stay reasonable here.

As for NASA remaining with SLS, for now at least, is due to a mix of congressional support, and the remaining unproven nature of starship. SLS allows members of congress say that they're supporting jobs. While SpaceX is pushing the limits of space engineering, Boeing and many other contractors have pushing the limits of political engineering. Hence the result that the same company that took us to the moon can't get into orbit, but is still maintaining contracts in spite of screwing up everything.

> they're not going to under cut their Falcon 9 that intensely

Once Starship is tried and tested, I strongly suspect they will flat out deprecate Falcon. Fly the missions that have been paid and scheduled, and then bin them.

Even with Starship not existing SLS is a mistake.

It doesn't do anything that you can't do in other ways. We already have distrusted rocket launch.

SLS is holding the moon architecture hostage. There is simply no need for it.

This is beyond insane and wont happen. Once Starhip flies even the last politicans can be cornered to admit to kill this ridiculous rocket.

No, there will be one excuse after another. Starship isn't human rated and only Orion is rated for human deep space flight. So something else will still be needed to launch Orion to that lunar trajectory. That something else is SLS.

Now the obvious solution is to rate Dragon for deep space and launch humans in that on a falcon and have it meet up with a starship in LEO. But getting that will probably take more years and billions paid to to the Orion and SLS POR before it will actually come to pass.

Never underestimate the power of a self-licking ice cream cone.

It's not like they're paying the 2050 launch costs up front.

If Starship succeeds, expect SLS to get quietly relegated after a few token launches.

I am sure that absent interference from the US House and Senate NASA would say something different but if NASA says too much their stand to have their funding cut.

>denialism

more like corruption

It's a jobs program for Alabama.

The space museum (also home of the famous Space Camp) in Huntsville, AL sure is pimping it, still. That's the one and only future rocket for USA space flight, one might think if one's only knowledge came from a visit to that museum, rather than a sad zombie project that everyone knows will be badly obsolete by the time it flies. Plus a huge amount of square footage dedicated to advertising for various MIC contractors for stuff that has little or nothing to do with space, and a lot to do with killing people. Super lame. Half of the museum feels like a government contractor trade show, not a museum, which makes sense given where it's located, but doesn't explain why it seems to have a good reputation, as far as space & rocketry museums go.