Re:Starcloud says 1 launch, $8M but ISS tech says 17 launche...
by angadh on Friday June 27, 2025 @10:43AM
(#44397180)
please read Table 1.
Re:Starcloud says 1 launch, $8M but ISS tech says 17 launche...
by ricardobeat on Monday June 30, 2025 @05:11AM
(#44421102)
What about it? They estimate an unrealistic $5M launch cost, but the point is that it is likely to be ~$25M and not the $100M+ this article suggests.
A Falcon Heavy launch is already under $100M, and in the $1400/kg range; Starship’s main purpose is to massively reduce launch costs, so $1000/kg is not optimistic at all and would be a failure. Their current target is $250/kg eventually once full reusability is in place.
Still far from the dream of $30/kg but not that far.
The original “white paper” [1] also does acknowledge that a separate launch is needed for the solar panels and radiators at a 1:1 ratio to the server launches, which is ignored here. I think the author leaned in a bit too much on their deep research AI assistant output.
[1] https://starcloudinc.github.io/wp.pdf