[AR] Re: DC-X anniversary
- From: Keith Henson <hkeithhenson@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: arocket@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Sun, 19 Aug 2018 22:50:10 -0700
On Sun, Aug 19, 2018 at 10:07 PM, Henry Spencer <hspencer@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
snip
The long-term goal of the effort that produced DC-X was vehicles that
could operate at a few times fuel cost. Falcon 9 currently costs $50-60M
and Elon has stated the fuel cost as being $0.2M, so he's got a long way
to go yet. The modest reusability of Falcon 9's first stage is a useful
saving and a step in the right direction, but *not* yet a fundamental
change in space launch.
Right. If you look at the price elasticity curve for space launch, it
is essentially flat all the way down to around $200/kg to GEO. At
that point some kind of power satellite might make sense. With
electric propulsion, $100/kg to LEO might do it.
Musk knows he can never get that low, so it makes sense he is down on
power satellites.
Keith
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