The likes of SpaceX are reporting costs in the range of $15B/year because NASA front loaded the cost of trailblazing launch technology half a century ago, with the technology available half a century ago.
Let's not fool ourselves into believing the likes of SpaceX are reinventing the wheel.
Also, those $15B are buying a fraction of the capabilities of SaturnV, and while SaturnV was proven effective and reliable 50 years ago, here we are discussing yet another "anomaly". Perhaps half these "anomalies" wouldn't exist if they weren't lean'ed into existence?
I wonder what "tons of payload to orbit" vs "dollars budget" would look like for Saturn era NASA vs Current SpaceX.
No doubt they're standing on the shoulders of giants, but let's not forget that they've helped transform the "go to space"-business.
That's like comparing how many containers Maersk moves today with how much sea cargo was moved back in the age of discovery.
Also, Saturn V worked and fulfilled it's mission, whereas Starship blows up.
I'd expect SpaceX to do much more now than NASA in the 60s if granted USD 200B/year, considering they are already standing on the shoulders of giants.
Then you will agree that comparing an unproven launcher which seems to be far far away from being able to fulfill a similar role is a very silly endeavour, let alone talk about it as a vast improvement which just so happens to blow up.
Its impressive how ignorant HN is about how many failures the S5 had during testing, falling for cold war propoganda at full speed
But we're comparing to SpaceX launches. Plenty of Raptor engines have blown up on the ground too.
There were 13 Saturn V's launched and all of them basically performed their mission (Apollo 6 being a bit of an exception) with 0 rapid unplanned disassemblies...
Not even just NASA. SpaceX are building on technologies that originated from both sides of the iron curtain (and beyond)
How far back do we go, and (more importantly) why?
The grandparent comment was pointing out that it cost NASA 200bn, and spaceX 15bn.
The parent comment pointed out that spaceX are actually saving money because they already got what nasa spent 200bn on.
My comment pointed out that they aren't just saving money by using NASAs tech, but tech from the Soviet Union as well - suggesting that their savings are far beyond just 200bn R&D
How many billions was that?
This sort of "they're just building on" talk is weird to me, and not really relevant.
What SpaceX has accomplished is astonishing, and no belittling of their accomplishments should be tolerated.
Its unfair to say spaceX did what NASA did on a smaller budget (which is what the comment that kicked off this thread implied) because they DIDNT do what NASA did, and instead got "the stuff that came before" + "the stuff that NASA spent 200b on" + "the stuff from other sources that also cost billions" + the 15b that they actually spent to get where they are.
How can you disagree with that? You may think this discussion is silly - but its DIRECTLY as a response to someone implying that spaceX are achieving what NASA did with less money: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44316227
Not really. You're not talking about technology. You're debating the economics behind it. You're seeing naive fanboys praising SpaceX's costs for the likes of Starship by comparing them to the cost of the SaturnV project, arriving at the simplistic conclusion that Starship is cheaper. This is like comparing your cheap Android phone as being far cheaper than a 1950s UNIVAC. And when the silliness of this specious reasoning is called out, your reaction is to downplay it as "not really relevant"?
That said, you're upset that I said comparing costs isn't relevant? Isn't that the case you're making right now, that the costs cannot be compared, therefore aren't relevant in this discussion?
My tact on non-relevance, is that saying "it was built on another program's tech!" is not relevant, because everything meets that criterion. For example, as I said, the Saturn was built on decades of German research, including war time research during WWII, into rockets. Saturn's US development costs were a fraction of overall rocket research done by the Germans!
So if upthread is going to argue "but it's all built on the Saturn, and free knowledge!", then the same argument can be carried further back, thus negating this argument. Why?
Because it makes the Saturn cost trillions.
Thats the whole point for this entire thread. Pointing out that you CANT compare the costs of spaceX with NASA because spaceX is building on NASAs (and others) achievements.
Maybe you need to go back and reread this entire thread rather than suggesting others do so.
Simultaneously, I am also using my same logic to argue that you cannot compare costs due to my reasoning.
I agreeing with the point (you can't compare costs) while disagreeing as to why.
Instead, I said it is an impossible thing to compare, for everything is built upon another. In fact, everything is built upon a myriad of other things.
Really, both the Heavy and the Saturn cost about the same. That's because they both depend upon the entire sum of human knowledge and research, to be built.
A billion trillion trillion trillion in today's dollars of knowledge gained and experience honed, over millions of years. So what if one cost a billion trillion trillion trillion, and another cost a billion trillion trillion trillion + a few billion more. The difference is meaningless, and not even worth considering.
And then there's the whole "how much is new" argument, and there's new knowledge aplenty thanks to SpaceX.
I really don't get these arguments. People seem to really love to denigrate the effort, the excellent results. It's beyond bizarre. And worse, mock because test flights, expected to possibly go sideways, do?
So weird.
"Hi, I'm going to see if this will work. It'll probably explode. But if it does, I'll learn something"
<boom>
hahaha it exploded you suck
I don't get it.
Total lunar effort from 1960-1973, adjusted for 2024 USD: $326 billion
Launch vehicle costs (Saturn V): $113 billion
I think this is what should be compared against the total Starship program cost starting from 2020 until such time it completes 6 lunar landings (not counting SLS or other costs).
Or, for the year that Starship actually lands on the moon, compare against the Saturn V launch vehicle costs for 1969, inflation adjusted: $5.9 billion. See: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/e/2PACX-1vTKMekJW9F8Z...
The value added is interesting. For example, both the Merlin and the Raptor family of engines. These are some fine engines, and they are remarkably cheap and reusable.
Source: https://youtu.be/Dar8P3r7GYA?si=RHZ8lWFYKrd7qQhy&t=321
0.8% US GDP in 1969 would be about 8B/yr today. Very different answer
for up to 0.8% US GDP per year. Today that would be $200B/year, pure spent. Where is Space X today is making, ie. it has a revenue, $15B/year.
>Perhaps web development is not the only thing that is susceptible to bloat.
similarly - web dev today can be done on $300 laptop by any schmuck. Even simple programming back then required a computer which cost a lot, and it was an almost academic activity.