If you had to buy a new car every time you had to go somewhere, you'd be broke by Tuesday.
So, why not apply the same logic to space travel.
90s kids will remember the space shuttle launches that ferried astronauts and cargo to the ISS.
But even the reusable shuttle was expensive, and so the program ended in 2011.
According to the founder of SpaceX, Elon Musk, the shuttle was too complex, and money could
be saved if the rocket was simplified.
Simplifying a rocket.
How hard could that be?
Well, after few crash landings and explosions, SpaceX seems to have the self-landing reusable
rocket thing figured out.
So, does this make space travel cheaper?
Space shuttle missions cost about 450 million dollars per launch, and while that sounds
like a lot more than SpaceX’s price of $133 million, you have to remember the Space Shuttle
was a beast of a craft, capable of carrying 50,000 pounds of cargo AND 7 crew members.
Broken down by the pound Shuttle flights cost about 10,000 dollars whereas a SpaceX Dragon
stuffed to the gills costs 9,100 dollars for every pound of cargo.
That’s well shy of Musk’s ultimate goal of bringing down the cost of space travel
by a at least a factor of 10.
But, he hopes to hit those numbers by launching more cargo at once on their next rocket, the
Falcon Heavy.
For now SpaceX has started launching reused Falcon-9 rockets and says the cost of refurbishing
one is less than half of building one from scratch.
They still have to recoup their investment, but eventually Musk says prices will drop.
The thing is, SpaceX is competing for government contracts with another company called United
Launch Alliance or ULA, a joint venture of Lockheed-Martin and Boeing.
Based on the US Air Force’s 2018 budget estimate, it looks like ULA will charge 422
million dollars per launch in 2020.
SpaceX, on the other hand, has done similar jobs for only 83 million dollars.
So things are allegedly cheaper.
Though, how much of that 300 million dollars difference is down to the rocket, is up for
debate.
In fact, the Government Accountability Office has criticized ULA for a lack of transparency
on pricing.
While some would argue ULA charges that much because they’re up against the margin and
can’t cut costs, Musk thinks they charge that much because they can.
They used to have no competition, their launch record is outstanding, and the satellites
they’re launching cost billions, so what’s a few hundred million dollars between friends?
While the Department of Defense can accept the higher launch costs because their budget
is bigger than God’s, NASA is, by comparison, a poor pauper that has to make a lump of coal
last the winter.
In 2015 NASA received 34 times less money than the DOD.
So, if SpaceX can save NASA money, it would be an ideal partnership.
The next thing NASA needs is a way to transport people.
SpaceX’s unfinished Dragon 2 spacecraft is designed to carry people at a price of
58 million dollars per seat.
Pretty good considering the only other ride to the ISS is aboard a Russian Soyuz, and
since the shuttle’s retirement they’ve been hiking the price.
They’re planning to charge 81 million dollars a seat next year.
I for one hope he does manage to get that price down, because I don’t think I can
save up 58 million dollars before I die.
Maybe I should invent some sort of service.
Like an easy way to pay my pals or something.
I don’t know, get back to me on this one, Elon.
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If you bought a ticket to space, how high would you have to go before you technically
got there?
Trace tells you where space starts here.
So would you hitch a ride on a rocket if you could?
Let us know in the comments, and thanks for watching