#rocket payload cost

[asestimationsconsultants]

Beyond Earth | The Role of a Construction Cost Estimating Service in Lunar and Space Habitat Projects

Introduction

As humanity expands its reach beyond Earth, construction is no longer confined to terrestrial landscapes. Ambitious plans from space agencies and private firms alike aim to establish permanent habitats on the Moon and even Mars. While the science behind these missions often takes the spotlight, one fundamental challenge remains critical: budgeting. In this futuristic context, a construction cost estimating service becomes as vital as propulsion systems and life support. Estimating construction costs for lunar habitats is an emerging discipline, bridging engineering, logistics, and economics in an entirely new domain.

The Challenges of Off-Earth Construction

Unlike conventional building environments, lunar and space habitats face extreme constraints. Materials must survive radiation, microgravity, and vacuum conditions. Transporting building supplies from Earth is immensely expensive, with every kilogram costing thousands of dollars. Labor is automated or conducted by astronauts under high-risk conditions, making precision in planning and budgeting non-negotiable.

Traditional construction cost estimating services cannot simply extend their models to space without modification. New frameworks must address entirely different metrics—launch mass, fabrication in zero gravity, and material behavior in non-Earth atmospheres.

Reimagining Cost Inputs in Space Projects

In terrestrial construction, estimators consider land acquisition, local labor rates, and weather impacts. In space, the variables are starkly different. A specialized construction cost estimating service must adapt to factors such as:

Launch weight penalties: Every extra kilogram impacts rocket fuel costs. Estimators must calculate mass-efficient solutions and include cost-benefit analyses for lighter or in-situ materials.

In-situ resource utilization (ISRU): Using lunar regolith or Martian soil to build structures cuts down transport costs. Estimators must model these savings accurately.

Automation and robotics: Much of space construction will rely on robotic systems. Estimating the cost of custom hardware, maintenance, and redundancy becomes crucial.

Habitat resilience: Structures must withstand radiation, micrometeorites, and thermal extremes. These safety requirements inflate material and engineering costs, demanding specialized forecasting.

Material Considerations and Transport Costs

Earth-based construction has access to a broad array of materials, suppliers, and delivery options. For lunar or Martian projects, the first cost hurdle is transport. A construction cost estimating service operating in this context must begin by assessing:

The cost of launching construction components via existing heavy-lift vehicles

The modular breakdown of prefabricated structures to fit within payload constraints

Opportunities to 3D-print using local materials, which introduces cost advantages but also new maintenance and reliability factors

These estimators must also calculate the cost implications of redundancy. In space, failure is not an option—spare parts and fail-safes must be factored into every budget.

Design and Engineering Collaboration

Close collaboration between cost estimators and aerospace engineers is essential. Every design decision affects cost exponentially. For example, selecting a spherical habitat design for its structural efficiency in resisting external pressure may reduce material volume but increase fabrication complexity.

A construction cost estimating service can simulate different design choices and their cost trajectories under space conditions. This collaborative feedback loop is essential for mission planners aiming to balance safety, performance, and financial feasibility.

Examples from Current Space Programs

NASA’s Artemis program and private initiatives like SpaceX’s Starship project are rapidly advancing the potential for lunar bases. While public estimates exist for mission costs, the actual construction phase of lunar surface infrastructure remains largely theoretical.

However, testbeds such as the Mars Dune Alpha habitat—being built on Earth to simulate Martian conditions—already employ advanced cost estimation to determine long-term feasibility. These prototypes rely on construction cost estimating services that consider both Earth-based costs and extrapolated values for deployment beyond our atmosphere.

Predictive Modeling and Future-Proofing

Because space construction is largely untested, predictive modeling is crucial. Cost estimators use probabilistic modeling to account for unknowns: delays due to solar events, failure rates of equipment, or advances in propulsion that may alter transport costs.

As technology evolves, future cost estimates must also be adaptable. For instance, the development of reusable rockets or on-site robotic assembly could drastically reduce certain costs while introducing others. Construction cost estimating services must remain flexible and continuously update their models as aerospace capabilities advance.

Sustainability and Lifecycle Costing in Space

Even in the vacuum of space, sustainability matters. Space habitats must function autonomously for extended periods. Estimators must assess the full lifecycle costs of structures: how often components need replacement, what energy systems are most efficient, and how waste is managed.

Just as on Earth, lifecycle costing helps mission planners make sustainable, long-term decisions that reduce risk and optimize investment. For space projects, these estimations are even more critical due to the complexity of repair and maintenance operations in extreme environments.

Conclusion

As we push the boundaries of civilization into outer space, the disciplines of architecture and construction must evolve—and with them, the role of cost estimation. A construction cost estimating service tailored to lunar and space habitats isn't just a support function; it's a foundation for feasibility, safety, and sustainability. By integrating mass constraints, ISRU, robotics, and life-support durability into their projections, these services help chart a financially viable path to our off-Earth future.

[yokowan]

hi! your writing on aerospace and venture capital was very interesting, thank you for putting it out there! i'm curious how spacex plays into the dichotomy of private firms rejecting integration testing and subsequently wasting more money than if one followed the proper procedures, since i've heard that the company has a substantial market share / is developing unique and relevant technology while leaning into the same "move fast and break things" approach. is it just... subsidized / popular enough to absorb the losses?

tldr: spacex has a combination of factors working for it, but the only reason they can tank the losses is because they're very good at operating a hype machine

they weren't always this insane. in 2009 spacex was moving at a pretty fast pace for aerospace relative to other companies, but it was quite measured compared to their current state. falcon 1 was an incredibly simple rocket, basically just a technology demonstrator. even then, they were 1 failure away from bankruptcy before they finally got a success. this is commonly told as an underdog success story but somehow it does not inspire as much confidence in me as you'd think :p

when they started making falcon 9 it was, once again, an extremely simple rocket. sure, they had big plans for it, but falcon 9 v1.0 was built on extremely dependable, well known technology. they hired good engineers, took their time with development, and used reliable, existing tech. from then on, they just built on it very slowly. they changed one thing at a time.

the real thing that lead to their success at the time is that none of the things they were developing interfered with the core capability of the rocket. like, none of their customers were relying on the fact that they wanted to land the rocket on a boat. it's going to crash in the ocean anyways. might as well do landing attempts. the cost for failure there was basically nothing. falcon 9 succeeded so incredibly because they built a decent regular rocket, added features onto it, and got their testing for free-ish from launches they were doing anyways.

the current era of spacex dawned when elon musk realized that he could run a business on hype alone. slowly but surely, he started promising more. way more than his company could deliver. they could sell absolutely insane amounts of total horseshit based on spacex's reputation alone. they built falcon 9, after all. that means they can build anything!

and sell it did! remember when starship was called the Big Fucking Rocket, and was supposed to be a 100m tall composite hulled structure capable of putting 300 tons into orbit? remember how it was supposed to be bringing people to mars in 2022? remember how none of that happened and everyone just forgot? that shit! that's how spacex has operated post 2017

that whole strategy is to drum up hype with obviously impossible promises and get all the redditor temporarily embarrassed billionaire types on board by being super memey about it. and it worked! by 2020 their valuation was exploding (much like starship teehee) and it has not slowed down since

^^^ this is what selling piles of hot bullshit did for spacex. and if anyone says starlink fuck you starlink just barely broke even last year and only thanks to the US military.

and when i say it's bullshit i mean it's bullshit. if you trust elon musk's twitter as a primary source (most spacex fans and investors do), starship's planned payload capacity fluctuates by like. 3x depending on how many times he's texted his ex wives that morning. they miss scheduled deadlines for test flights and static fires so often that people joke about them being scheduled on "elon time" and somehow don't realize that this is a bad thing. every time a starship explodes it's lauded as some great achievement because if they ever admit failure, the hype will die out.

they're not just doing agile to rockets! this isn't changing requirements as new information becomes available. this is changing requirements whenever the billionaire dipshit feels like it! the poor engineers working for spacex are working insane crunch schedules just to keep the hype train moving. they need to constantly crank out impressive looking results to keep investors excited, even if they're not actually moving towards a goal. i've heard so many stories from spacex employees that they find out about changes to starship design requirements or test times from elon's twitter. it's fucking insane.

and spacex never stopped improving falcon 9! it kept being a pretty good rocket. they made incremental improvements to payload capacity and reusability. dragon became the workhorse of the US's transportation to the international space station. but that's not what they make the news for. that's not what they got their TWO HUNDRED AND TEN BILLION DOLLAR VALUATION for. no. they got that for making promises they can't keep.

this rant doesn't even touch on COTS/commercial crew. if i did it would end up being about five times longer. god help us all.

[lonestarflight]

Proposal: Dyna-Soar/Little Joe II Suborbital Flight Test Program

Artist concept of Little Joe II/Dyna-Soar concept. (Convair)

"The X-20 Dyna-Soar program is often remembered as one of the biggest lost opportunities in the history of manned space flight. Evolving from the WS-464L Program, Dyna-Soar had great potential for use as a military space platform as well as civilian science laboratory. Unlike the earlier Mercury, Gemini and Apollo capsules that were single-use vehicles returning to earth under a parachute system, the X-20 was a winged vehicle, capable of landing on select runways, then refur- bished and utilized again.

Initial flight testing of the Dyna-Soar had the vehicle dropped from a modified B-52C, 53-0399, carrier aircraft to test atmospheric handling qualities and landing techniques. The USAF selected Ed wards AFB, CA, and White Sands Missile Range, NM, due to their natural runway surfaces. (AFTC History Office)

The initial phase of the X-20 flight test program had the vehicle dropped from high altitudes from a B-52C mothership to test atmospheric aerodynamic handing of the vehicle, as well as develop landing techniques at Edwards AFB, CA. The second phase of testing involved sending the X-20 on unmanned and manned orbital spaceflight test mis- sions powered by a Titan III rocket booster which left a large gap in the standard progression of flight testing. The Convair Division of General Dynam- ics proposed making suborbital test flights using a Little Joe II booster.

The Little Joe II was a clustered, solid-propellant rocket booster designed as unguided and controllable versions. The vehicle could accommodate one to seven, 40-inch diameter, 100,000-lb thrust, Aerojet Algol 1D solid rocket mo- tors. With minor modifications the im proved launch vehicle (IPLV) could ac commodate the more advanced 44-inch diameter Algol IIA motors.

Little Joe II had the reputation as a reliable work- horse of the early manned space program, testing Mercury and Apollo escape and recovery systems from various launch locations. The Little Joe II booster was a versatile rocket with capabilities not found on many systems of the day and could be adapted and configured for several different flight profiles.

This detailed dimensional drawing shows some of the modifications required for the Little Joe il booster in order to carry the Dyna-Soar test vehicle. In addition to the upper adapter fairing, the booster required larger aerodynamic stabilizing fins to compensate for the larger payload. (Convair)

Convair proposed making test flights of the Dyna- Soar/Little Joe II combination on an overland range between Edwards AFB, CA and the White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico. Launching from Edwards AFB provided a lakebed in case of an aborted launch . and emergency landing. Range instrumentation was already in place at both sites, keeping the range support cost to a minimum.

Two different versions of the modified Little Joe II booster

The Dyna-Soar test vehicle would be mounted atop the Little Joe II booster with a two-part transition fairing, gloved over the X-20 to minimize drag and would be jettisoned prior to separation. This variation of the Little Joe II booster required movable aerodynamic fins, larger than those used on standard Little Joe II launches.

A Boeing/USAF X-20 Dyan-Soar is boosted skyward for a suborbital test flight from Edwards AFB, CA towards White Sands Missile Range, NM, aboard a Convair Little Joe II. The larger stabilizing fins and aerodynamic fair- ing around the Dyna-Soar are noteworthy. (Convair)

Utilizing a standard Little Joe II booster, the X-20 could be propelled to a maximum speed of 10,000 fps (approximately 6,800 mph) at an altitude near 170,000 feet. With the improved Little Joe II launch vehi- cle, those figures would rise to a speed of 15,000 fps (approximately 10,200 mph) and an altitude near 200,000 feet. The entire flight covered approximately 582 nautical miles, with the booster impacting the desert floor just over halfway through the flight. The Dyna-Soar test vehicle would experience considerable aerodynamic heating during the reentry phase with the final landing on the alkali flats of the White Sands Missile Range.

The Dyna-Soar suborbital program required a minimum of five test flights: two unmanned flights utilizing the existing automatic guidance, and three manned flights. Convair projected the total price of the five-flight test program at $12.2 million, considerably less than the projected $18 million per flight for a Titan III booster (figures are in FY 1965 dollars)."

AFMC History & Museums Program HQ AFMC/HO 4225 Logistics Ave, RM S133-Wright-Patterson AFB 45433-5006-DSN: 713-1797

source

NASA ID: 63-Little Joe II-3

SDASM Archives: 86914210, 47209426

[piratesexmachine420]

I'm annoyed by this article:

Let's do an exercise: assuming an asteroid of equal mass and composition of 16 Psyche just..appeared in low Earth orbit one day (for ease of mining), what might our profit margins look like? Assuming some unrealistically optimistic numbers 'cause I'm not a rocket scientist.

The Smithsonian quotes a price for Psyche at $10 quintillion. Dividing by its mass, we get a dollar density of 44 US cents per kilogram.

Next, do a search on your engine of choice for something like "comparison of orbital launch vehicles by payload price to LEO". I'll use the "your world in data" page that comes up as my first result for my source here. We're looking for the cheapest launcher in terms of USD/kg. At time of writing, this is the Falcon Heavy.

Now we'll perform some research on exactly what the FH's payload capacity at a given price point. Being reusable and expendable complicates the math! Moreover, Falcon Heavy hasn't actually flown that many missions, so we have to do some extrapolation. Poking around the Wikipedia article and taking some unsourced claims at face value, the cheapest configuration seems to be a partially reusable configuration (core expended, boosters recovered) with a LEO payload capacity around 57,000 kg for something like $120 million USD. That's about $2100 USD/kg. (Feel free to correct me in the future if you're better at research/new data appears!)

Now we want to find the highest-performance vacuum engines available. Let's check the Wikipedia article "Comparison of orbital rocket engines" and sort by Specific Impulse, descending to get an idea of what we're working with. As of writing, we find the best chemical option available to us is the venerable RL10 at about 450-460 seconds, with the RL10C-2 leading the pack at 465.5 seconds!

Lets go back to our Falcon Heavy payload capacity. As a ballpark figure, let's assume our spacecraft has a dry mass of ten tons. Very optimistic, IMO. With our RL10C-2's fuel to oxidizer ratio of 1:5.88 (all from the L3Harris datasheet), we can cram something like 40 tons of O2 and 7 tons of H2 onto this launch vehicle. A brief bit of back-of-the-napkin math and a consultation of the Falcon User's Guide seems to indicate this'll fit in the payload fairing. The extended one, at least.

Finally: how much of Psyche can our monster RL10 upper stage haul back? Consulting the Space Shuttle Operations Manual for a deorbit burn ballpark, we find on page 33 that it's "anywhere from 200 to 550 fps". We'll be optimistic and take 200 fps. That's about 60 m/s. Solving the rocket equation for 60 m/s = 465.5 s * 9.8 m/s/s * ln((57,000kg+x)/(10,000kg+x)), we get x=~3.5 million kg. At $0.44 per kilogram, that's about $1.5 million USD. Remember how our launch vehicle cost ~120 million? We teleported Psyche to LEO and we're still in the hole $198 million. We didn't even account for the price of our upper stage!

If our launch costs are actually something closer to $240 million, what would the dollar density have to be to break even? 240/3.5 = $68/kilogram. Taking a peek at the Wikipedia "Prices of chemical elements" we find that's equivalent to an asteroid of pure Tellurium. What about ~$360 million? Pure Uranium. Still just in LEO, mind you, and we haven't even accounted for how we're gonna crash the market when we flood it with our space metal.

You aren't making a profit asteroid mining for a couple hundred years, minimum. We are not on the cusp of a plurality of humans working off-world. Same it as it ever was.

[rocket-enjoyer]

You know what really grinds my gears?

Working with people who don't understand how a neural computer works.

Be it some mass ratio optimizing payload engineer, a logistics officer frustrated with the difficulties caused by our team's solutions or just our boss looking for reasons to fire us because they thought our initial cost estimate was "unrealistically high" and are now sorely disappointed at reality, these people are miserable to deal with. On the surface, their complaints make sense; we are seemingly doing a much worse job than everyone else is and anything we come up with creates lots of problems for them. Satisfying all their demands, however, is impossible. With this post I intend to educate my audience on

Neural Computers 101

so that my blog's engineer-heavy audience may understand the inevitable troubles those in my field seemingly summon out of thin air and so that you people will hopefully not bother us quite as much anymore.

First of all, neural matter is extremely resource heavy. Not by mass, mind you; a BNC of 2 kilograms requires only a few dozen grams of whatever standardized or specialized mix of sustenance is preferred in a single martian day. (I'm not going to bother converting that.) The inconvenient part is the sheer variety in the things they need and the waste products they create.

This is just a shortened list, but already it causes problems. If you want to create a self contained system to avoid having to refuel constantly, you will need a lot of mass and a lot of complexity. This is what a typical sustenance diagram for such a system looks like:

(Keep in mind, this diagram doesn't even have electricity drawn in.)

Typically these systems are even more complicated, with redundancies and extra steps. In any case, this is complicated, energy expensive and a nightmare to maintenance crew. I mean, just keeping the bacterial microbiome alive is a lot of effort!

Second of all, neural matter is extremely vulnerable. Most power plant and rocket designers just round away all temperature changes less than 100 K, but neural matter will outright die if its temperature is just a few kelvin off of the typical value. The same goes for a lot of other things - you'll need some serious temperature regulation, shock absorption, radiation shielding (damn it I wish we had access to the same stuff as those madmen in the JMR) and on top of all of that, you need to consider mental instability!

That last one is kind of the biggest pain in the ass for these things - we need to give them a damn game to play whenever they don't have any real work to deal with or they degrade and start to go insane. (Don't worry, I'm not stupid, I know these things aren't actually sentient, I'm just saying that to illustrate the way they work.) It can't even be the same game - you need to design one based on what the NC is designed to do! (Game is a misleading term by the way; it's not like a traditional video game. No graphics - just a set of variables, functions and parameters on a simple circuit board that the NC can influence.)

And lastly, neural computers are complicated. Dear Olympus are they complicated. There are so so many ways to build them, and the process of deriving which one to use is extremely difficult. You can't blame the NC team for an inappropriate computer if the damn specifications keep changing every week!

There's the always-on, calculation-heavy, simple and slow Pennington circuits, the iconic Gobbs cycle (Bloody love that thing!), the Anesuki thinknet and its derivatives, the Klenowicz for those insane venusians and so so many more frameworks for both ANCs and BNCs. Oh yeah, by the way, the acronyms ANC and BNC actually don't stand for Advanced and Basic Neural Computer respectively. They stand for Type A Neural Computer and Type B Neural Computer. It comes from that revolutionary paper written by Anesuki.

[customdestiny]

Been a while since I did a custom weapon, and now I have developed the first strand heavy weapon. A rocket powered machine gun that can help with ad clear or focus on bigger target for higher damage.

Exotic Strand Machine Gun - Countermeasure

Exotic Intrinsic Perk - Emergency Contingent [600rpm]: Fires micro rockets which embed into surfaces and targets, then detonate to stagger them. Strong against unstoppable champions. Barrel: Hard Launch. Magazine: High Velocity Rounds. Exotic Trait - Homing Beacon: Embedding several rockets into a target marks them. Damaging marked targets with this weapon increases its stability and reload speed, and micro rockets track to marked targets, dealing increased damage. Marked targets release a suspending burst on death. Stock: Fitted Stock.

A machine gun with a extreme version of timed payload. Rockets gain damage buff from hazardous propulsion. Marking a target has the same effects as Mataiodoxia, meaning marking with Mataiodoxia arcane needle will cause you and allies rockets to track while in line of sight and will release a suspending burst on death, neat!

Lore: Sid mused over the blueprints, mentally calculating the cost of raw materials and production. Making a gun is the easy part, the nano machines make quick work of that. He remembers overhearing some guardians talking, exchanging stories about cursed guns, some even being quote, “alive.” He refused to believe it, the gun isn’t the important part, it's a delivery mechanism for the real show, whatever magic munitions they ship into the skull of whatever they aim at. And Sid knew that the package they wanted to ship here was gonna cost 10x more than whatever casing they could make to withstand firing it. “Don’t think I know what you want to use this on.” “I’m just asking if it's possible,” Tse Jingye responded. “Nimbus said that this witness that’s been causing all this ruckus is dead, we have to prepare for future threats.” “What threats exactly? I checked the date for this design, it's from before even those pyramids showed up. Don’t think I know what you REALLY want this used against?” “Nimbus mentioned what killed the witness right, there's a reason we never interacted with these Warlords before.” “They’re Guardians, remember. And they’ve been helping us since the moment they crashed down here. How’d you think they would react if they learned you want to develop a weapon to kill them.” Tse paused for a moment, “We give it to them, let them play around with it.” She then pulled up a live feed display for the both of them. “They call it the Crucible, we used to hack their feed but they’ve been broadcasting to us now. Look at them, they’re already killing each other over and over and over again. We give them a new weapon, they’ll be the first to try to blow themselves up with it. Make it, and we’ll see if it can actually kill Guardians. I can talk to the guy who runs it. I've heard how eager he is to give Guardian new toys, he might be able to throw some funding our way.” “This is the farthest thing from a toy,” Sid contemplated for a moment, “Fine. As long as they can manage the upkeep on the mutations. I still can’t figure out how you managed to synthesize that energy for it.” “It’s the same that comes off the veil, another guardian helped with it." Tse gave a light chuckle, "No one wants a guardian dead more than another guardian it seems.”

[creature-studios]

The Sea Dragon was a conceptual design for a super heavy-lift launch vehicle proposed in 1962 by Robert Truax while working at Aerojet. It was designed to be sea-launched, meaning the rocket would be floated in the ocean before liftoff, reducing infrastructure costs. With a height of 150 meters (490 feet) and a diameter of 23 meters (75 feet), it would have been the largest rocket ever built. The first stage was powered by a single massive engine producing 350 MN (79,000,000 lbf) of thrust, burning RP-1 and liquid oxygen (LOX). The second stage used liquid hydrogen (LH2) and LOX, generating 59 MN (13,000,000 lbf) of thrust.

Truax envisioned the Sea Dragon as a low-cost, high-reliability launch system, built using simple materials like 8 mm steel sheeting. The rocket would be constructed at a shipyard and then towed to sea for launch. A ballast tank system attached to the first-stage engine bell would help position the rocket vertically before liftoff. The payload, housed at the top of the second stage, would be easily accessible just above the waterline. The design aimed to be partially reusable, with passive reentry and recovery of rocket sections for refurbishment and relaunch.

Despite interest from NASA and Todd Shipyards, the Sea Dragon was never built. However, its payload capacity of 550 tonnes to low Earth orbit (LEO) was comparable to later concepts like SpaceX’s Interplanetary Transport System. The idea of sea-launched rockets was tested with Sea Bee and Sea Horse, smaller experimental vehicles that demonstrated the feasibility of ocean-based launches. While the Sea Dragon remains an unrealized concept, it continues to be one of the most ambitious rocket designs ever conceived.

[irradiate-space]

starship doesnt work. the $5 billion spent (not including $2 billion for launches) is not final. additionally $1 billion per launch (for a rocket that doesnt work) compared to $2 billion per launch isnt the difference between $1,000,000 and $100. compared to its competitors starship is not 10,000 times more cost effective it is at best twice as and currently not at all (since it does not work yet)

(this ask received on 2023-12-03)

Anon-kun, I seriously considered saving this ask until after the third Starship launch, currently scheduled for spring 2024. I wonder: did you say these same things about SpaceX's Falcon 9? Back before landing a spacecraft became a routine occurrence, there were many people who complained that SpaceX was wasting money and wasting fuel trying to build a reusable booster. I often wonder what those skeptics say now about the value of reusable rockets.

You say that the Starship does not "work" yet, but I tell you: the SLS does not work at all. The same metrics you use to say that Starship doesn't work apply equally to the SLS, and show that the SLS is financially infeasible.

The traditional space-industrial complex is having trouble building SLS rockets fast enough to meet the Artemis launch cadence: one launch each in 2024, 2025 2026, 2028, 2929. There are concerns that the SLS won't be ready in time to launch astronauts to the Moon, and this, mind you, is for a program which has been running since the 2000s. Artemis 4 has already been delayed to 2026 at the earliest because the required ground support equipment for the SLS Block 1B rocket won't be ready before November 2026.

The next Starship is expected to launch in 3-4 months. SpaceX expects to build an assembly line to build Starships at the rate of one Starship per week. SpaceX plans to sell these launches for $10 million per launch. Even if SpaceX sold launches on the fully-reusable Starship for the same price as the partially-reusable Falcon 9, at about $62 million per launch, that cost is still ... $62m/100t * 95t/$2b = 0.02 ... at Falcon 9 costs, the Starship launches mass to LEO at 2% of the cost of the SLS. The SLS will be priced out of the market, because not even Congress wants to pay $2 billion per launch when you can get the same capability for $62 million per launch. And SpaceX expects the cost to be lower than that.

Sure, there have been many explosions in SpaceX's program. That's because SpaceX is working on a different development model than the space-industrial complex. We saw that with the early Falcon 9 landings: the landing of the rocket was sugar on the cake; the real precious thing was the information received in the attempt, which enables faster iteration. Changing how SLS stages would cost billions of dollars and take 10 years of change orders. SpaceX iterated that in less than a year.

I predict that, by the end of 2024, SpaceX will have successfully orbited a Starship, and will be selling commercial launch slots.

See you next year, nony?

Yes, Musk is an ass, and a fool, and a prating coxcomb. But as long as his ego doesn't cost SpaceX anything, SpaceX is on the path to be selling sub-$100m 100t payloads to Mars by 2030. Is it meet, think you, what we should also, look you, be an ass and a fool and a prating coxcomb? In your own conscience, now?

[sawbuckplus]

“Ultimately, I think Starship will be the thing that takes us over the top as one of the most valuable companies. We can’t even envision what Starship is going to do to humanity and humans’ lives, and I think that will be the most valuable part of SpaceX.” That is based on the belief, she said, that the fully reusable rocket with a payload capacity to low Earth orbit that could exceed 100 metric tons, will “change everything” about spaceflight, and not just with lower launch costs. “Starship is so big that the concept of how we put things in space, how people will travel in space, is totally different.”

This can facilitate moving heavy industry and solar power collection to orbit. This is huge.

[enlightenedsloth]

A small catch for humanity

This is an engineering marvel; nothing has been seen like this before. A rocket propeller, roughly the size of a 20-storey building, falling at a speed of 8000 km/h, was caught between metal chopsticks (Mechazilla), after descending from earth’s orbit. The propeller weighs 3500 tons, justifying its name- Super Heavy. They have made the whole world root for rocket launches, which I don’t think ever happened after the 1969 Saturn V launch.

A plethora of mechanisms had to work in tandem to make this possible. GPS and various other sensors such as RADAR- used for measuring the height of the rocket by bouncing off radio waves from the ground, LIDAR- to make a 3D model of the surrounding area by throwing laser pulses, had a part to play in the precision. The rocket propeller is specifically designed to launch Starship, a spacecraft which will potentially take astronauts to the Moon and Mars, and over the years, SpaceX has invested billions into this world-bending transporter.

Why billions? Why world-bending? Why should we care?

All of this to make our species multi-planetary. Every human, every living being that ever breathed for even a second has done it only at one place-earth (at least that’s what we know as of now), a small, rocky, gaseous ball floating in the vast expanse of 8.8 x 10^23 kilometers (diameter of the observable universe), our home. But if everything goes right, consciousness will have a new place to prosper in and become more self-aware. The starship is at the heart of this plan, as it will be a fully reusable rocket, capable of being refueled in the orbit, significantly bringing down the cost of rocket launches and increasing the travel duration per trip. The starship is the biggest rocket ever built which is capable of carrying large payloads and hence, it is the perfect tool to build a colony on Mars. Once the colony is built, they also plan to make it self-sustaining by terraforming the planet by releasing greenhouse gases to alter the atmosphere that will be suitable to us. The greenhouse gases will make the planet warm which increase atmospheric pressure and melt the large frozen water reservoirs on Mars.

Building a colony on Mars seems to be out of Hollywood sci-fi, but we as a species have always had it in us. Human migration to Australia 65000 odd years ago was a significant step. They didn’t have compasses, maps, or safety measures, but somehow, they crossed large seas with primitive hand-made boats and settled there. Even the 1969 Apollo 11 mission is a perfect analogy as the technology, Apollo Guidance Computer (AGC) had a memory of 64 KB and could perform just 85000 instructions per second compared to modern smartphones, which have millions of times more processing power.

Ah! I want to live to see a self-sustaining colony being built on Mars.

[klimkovsky]

Awaiting the first launch of Blue Origin’s New Glenn rocket

Blue Origin is a direct and perhaps the closest competitor to SpaceX. Its founder, Jeff Bezos (Jeffrey Preston “Jeff” Bezos), better known as the founder and owner of Amazon, as well as the head of the Washington Post publishing house, was the richest man on the planet for several years, and only a couple of years ago he gave up his place in this rating to Elon Musk. Almost simultaneously with Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos assessed the prospects of the private sector in American and world cosmonautics, and began to actively invest in this industry — he created an aerospace company, whose name for many years was associated only with commercial suborbital jumps to the edge of the earth’s atmosphere — an attraction for the rich. But in parallel with this, a heavy-class carrier was being developed, strategically aimed at reusability.

This development has been delayed. The launch of the New Glenn rocket (named after the first American astronaut to make the first orbital flight, John Glenn) has been expected for many years. Its creation began more than 10 years ago, but since then the dates for demonstrating at least something have only been postponed. Contracts were even signed for the launch of payloads, but most of them were terminated due to the unreadiness of the carrier, or postponed indefinitely. For example, in 2021, New Glenn was supposed to deliver a research station to the Moon, and in 2023, send another rover to Mars. Most of the failed Blue Origin contracts went to (it’s not hard to guess who) SpaceX. It’s gotten ridiculous — like SpaceX, Blue Origin aims to create its own satellite constellation for broadband Internet access around the world (this is the so-called Project Kuiper — an analogue of the Starlink system), and the New Glenn rocket was primarily developed for this project, but the first devices of Jeff Bezos’ satellite constellation were launched into orbit by Elon Musk’s Falcon 9 carriers.

The delay in the development of New Glenn is largely due to problems in the development of BE-4 engines. These are innovative engines on a Methane-Oxygen fuel pair. Elon Musk preferred Kerosene-Oxygen fuel for his workhorse Falcon 9 and was right. Despite the promising benefit of using methane, the technology of methane engines is still only being researched. But Bezos decided not to waste time on temporary solutions and ended up getting stuck at the development and testing stage, which also let down industry partners — the American space giant ULA (United Launch Alliance), whose Vulcan rocket (which replaced the Atlas-5 launch vehicle, which used Russian RD-180 engines) also could not put anything into orbit for several years, since there were no BE-4 engines for it. And most of ULA’s contracts also went to SpaceX.

But now the engines are ready, and even Vulcan has already launched a couple of times. But New Glenn still couldn’t take off — apparently, the development was stuck on something else besides the engines. At the end of 2024, the stumbling block was the launch permit from the FAA, which had previously passionately slowed down test flights of the Starship system from SpaceX, but now it seems the American regulator has a new passion.

However, permission has already been received — in the first days of the new year 2025. Fire tests of the carrier, which has been on the launch pad at Cape Canaveral for many days, have been conducted. The launch may occur in the very near future, but not earlier than January 10.

This will be a demonstration flight, during which a demo version of the orbital tug “Blue Ring Pathfinder” will appear in space, which will not even separate from the second stage — it will be deorbited (submerged) together with it. Orbital tugs are a relatively new direction in space technology. The cost of launches is rapidly falling. And the cost of the payload is still quite high. For example, launching into orbit can cost from 50 to 100 million dollars, but the device itself can cost a billion. Its service life is limited by the wear of solar panels or the supply of fuel for correction and raising the orbit. What if it was possible to refuel a satellite worth a billion for 100 million dollars or transfer it to another orbit, replace a number of components right in orbit, or even deorbit it — with the help of a special satellite — a tug? Previously, this was not thought about. Of course, the Space Shuttle system sometimes solved such problems, but now it is gone, and there are satellites waiting for servicing in orbit. New players in the space technology market are also trying to fill this niche with their developments. Blue Origin is also developing tugs. “Blue Ring Pathfinder” is their brainchild. It turns out that in the upcoming flight we will see a demonstration of two promising technologies at once.

Blue Ring — a space tug from Blue Origin

Source: Universe and Human

Author: Andrey Klimkovsky

[timberwind]

The pop-sci takeaway from the Apollo program is always "if we'd only kept building more Saturn Vs we'd be on Mars by now!", which is of course very tempting to believe - it's an iconic rocket, undeniably very cool. Unfortunately the truth is, imo, more along the lines of Saturn V being a historic mistake from the start; the post-Apollo stagnation was assured more or less the moment we agreed on taking the fastest route - a big booster lofting the whole mission at once.

So it's like, launch cost is almost entirely dominated by the fixed cost of infrastructure - this is why Shuttle became such a white elephant by the way, the original hopeful cost figures were predicated on a twenty-to-fifty a year flight rate. We achieved, at best, nine (and then more or less immediately after the Challenger happened, but this is a whole other tangent). Saturn V had two real payloads - the Apollo missions, and Skylab. In the absence of sustained 1969 mission cadence and all the enormous funding commitments that entailed, the huge fixed infrastructure of Saturn V would have rusted on the Cape Canaveral coast most of the year waiting for a single mission, even if they hadn't closed the production lines before the first piloted Apollo mission even launched.

How could this have been different? Plausibly we could have gone with an EOR (Earth Orbit Rendezvous) or even split LOR (Lunar Orbit Rendezvous) plan, much like the original plans proposed by Von Braun at the pre-NASA Army Balistic Missile Agency - flotillas of smaller Saturn 1B (~20t to LEO) or Saturn C3 (~50t to LEO) launches carrying the crew module, the Trans-Lunar-Injection stage, the lunar lander, and propellant for all of the above to staging points in Low Earth Orbit, where they'd be put together like god's own lego set and sent on their way. This, notably, would have allowed two things - one is amortization of the launch infrastructure over more flights, which also allows for learning-curve cost reduction as tooling gets better at handling successive launchers. The other is amortization of the enormous fixed cost of a space launch complex and it's concomitant "standing army" of technicians and their support staff over a great many launches. Notably, unlike the massively oversize Saturn V, those launchers would also have had the ability to cost-effectively launch other payloads during 'off season' - commsats, military birds, weather satellites, space probes, whatever - more cost effectively, driving down the effective cost of a single launch yet further.

This would all be water under the bridge, of course, if it hadn't convinced everyone since that we simply can't do missions to the Moon without a hundred tons of throw weight to LEO - after all, that's what the sole example looked like! One study carried out by the 2000s Augustine Commission (a government advisory group founded in the wake of the Ares Program's failure to produce a big new rocket), found that even then we could have achieved lunar missions with only slightly upgraded versions of the existing EELV (Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle) fleet and some orbital aggregation. This was unfortunately discarded in favor of yet another big rocket though. I guess that's just the way things go, but it is unfortunate imo!

[anumberofhobbies]

Just ordered this after having added it to wish list last year. Insomnia, pain, it was the perfect time to order a book with money I really needed to save for the upcoming heating bill. ;D But, hey, book was about 20% off, got free shipping, and there was a seven dollar gift card balance I didn't know I had that amazon applied to it. I'm going to call it a wise order. ;D

Nuclear Rockets: To the Moon and Mars Paperback – April 16, 2023 by Manfred "Dutch" von Ehrenfried (Author) 4.0 out of 5 stars   (2) See all formats and editions So why is NASA refocusing its efforts on Nuclear Thermal Propulsion now, when chemical propulsion is so well established for human spaceflight? The reason is that future proposed flights are getting much longer and studies have shown that long-duration, weightless spaceflight has a lot of deleterious effects on the human body. When considering a flight to Mars takes a minimum of 2-3 years roundtrip, anything we can do to shorten the total mission time is highly desirable; if not mandatory. The longer the mission, the more exposure to galactic cosmic radiation, solar particles and coronal mass ejections, medical problems, and potential emergencies. A first-generation nuclear cryogenic propulsion system could propel human explorers to Mars more efficiently than conventional spacecraft, reducing the crews' exposure to harmful space radiation and other effects of long-term space missions. It could also transport heavy cargo and science payloads. A nuclear rocket engine uses a nuclear reactor to heat hydrogen to very high temperatures, which expands through a nozzle to generate thrust. Nuclear rocket engines generate higher thrust and are more than twice as efficient as conventional chemical rocket engines; just what’s needed for the crew to better survive the long-duration missions to Mars. In 1959, NASA replaced the Air Force in the development of the nuclear rocket and the mission changed from a nuclear missile to a nuclear rocket for long-duration space flight.  Working with the DOE National Laboratories they worked on various research projects for 17 years including the Rover, NERVA, Kiwi, Pewee, and Phoebus rockets. In the late 1960s, the rising cost of the Vietnam War put increased pressure on budgets. It was determined that the Apollo program did not need nuclear rockets. Over the years, Congress support for the nuclear thermal propulsion projects including the Saturn upper stage, lunar and Mars missions, and the "Grand Tour" of the Solar System waned; nuclear rocket efforts were canceled in 1973. Now, there is renewed interest in picking up from those early efforts to produce nuclear rockets using state-of-the-art technology for deep space missions. NASA, DOD, and DARPA have teamed up to let contracts to many aerospace companies in order to define the best designs for nuclear thermal propulsion and nuclear fission power for surface energy applications. This book covers the past and present efforts that will lead to supporting near future cis-lunar and Mars missions. " Publisher ‏ : ‎ Independently published (April 16, 2023) Language ‏ : ‎ English Paperback ‏ : ‎ 270 pages ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 979-8377421252 Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1.22 pounds Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6.69 x 0.64 x 9.61 inches

[lonestarflight]

Comparison between the enlarged VentureStar and the X-33.

"This artist's rendering depicts the NASA/Lockheed Martin X-33 technology demonstrator alongside the Venturestar, a Single-Stage-To-Orbit (SSTO) Reusable Launch Vehicle (RLV). The X-33, a half-scale prototype for the Venturestar, is scheduled to be flight tested in 1999. NASA's Dryden Flight Research Center, Edwards, California, plays a key role in the development and flight testing of the X-33. The RLV technology program is a cooperative agreement between NASA and industry. The goal of the RLV technology program is to enable signifigant reductions in the cost of access to space, and to promote the creation and delivery of new space services and other activities that will improve U.S. economic competitiveness. NASA Headquarter's Office of Space Access and Technology is overseeing the RLV program, which is being managed by the RLV Office at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center, located in Huntsville, Alabama. The X-33 was a wedged-shaped subscale technology demonstrator prototype of a potential future Reusable Launch Vehicle (RLV) that Lockheed Martin had dubbed VentureStar. The company had hoped to develop VentureStar early this century. Through demonstration flight and ground research, NASA's X-33 program was to provide the information needed for industry representatives such as Lockheed Martin to decide whether to proceed with the development of a full-scale, commercial RLV program. A full-scale, single-stage-to-orbit RLV was to dramatically increase reliability and lower costs of putting a pound of payload into space, from the current figure of $10,000 to $1,000. Reducing the cost associated with transporting payloads in Low Earth Orbit (LEO) by using a commercial RLV was to create new opportunities for space access and significantly improve U.S. economic competitiveness in the world-wide launch marketplace. NASA expected to be a customer, not the operator, of the commercial RLV. The X-33 design was based on a lifting body shape with two revolutionary 'linear aerospike' rocket engines and a rugged metallic thermal protection system. The vehicle also had lightweight components and fuel tanks built to conform to the vehicle's outer shape. Time between X-33 flights was normally to have been seven days, but the program had hoped to demonstrate a two-day turnaround between flights during the flight-test phase of the program. The X-33 was to have been an unpiloted vehicle that took off vertically like a rocket and landed horizontally like an airplane. It was to have reached altitudes of up to 50 miles and high hypersonic speeds. The X-33 program was managed by the Marshall Space Flight Center and was to have been launched at a special launch site on Edwards Air Force Base. Due to technical problems with the liquid hydrogen tank, and the resulting cost increase and time delay, the X-33 program was cancelled in February 2001."

Date: September 23, 1999

source

NASA Identifier: NIX-ED97-43929, ED97-43938-1

[spacetimewithstuartgary]

6 Things to Know About NASA’s Lunar Trailblazer

Feb. 26, 2025

The small satellite mission will map the Moon to help scientists better understand where its water is, what form it’s in, how much is there, and how it changes over time.

Launching no earlier than Wednesday, Feb. 26, NASA’s Lunar Trailblazer will help resolve an enduring mystery: Where is the Moon’s water? After sharing a ride on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket with Intuitive Machines’ IM-2 launch — part of NASA’s CLPS (Commercial Lunar Payload Services) initiative — the small satellite will take several months to arrive in lunar orbit.

Here are six things to know about the mission.

1. Lunar Trailblazer will produce high-resolution maps of water on the lunar surface.

One of the biggest lunar discoveries in recent decades is that the Moon’s surface has quantities of water, but little about its nature is known. To investigate, Lunar Trailblazer will decipher where the water is, what form it is in, how much is there, and how it changes over time. The small satellite will produce the best-yet maps of water on the lunar surface. Observations gathered during the two-year prime mission will also contribute to the understanding of water cycles on airless bodies throughout the solar system.

2. The small satellite will use two state-of-the-art science instruments.

Key to achieving these goals are the spacecraft’s two science instruments: the High-resolution Volatiles and Minerals Moon Mapper (HVM3) infrared spectrometer and the Lunar Thermal Mapper (LTM) infrared multispectral imager. NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California provided the HVM3 instrument, while LTM was built by the University of Oxford and funded by the UK Space Agency.

HVM3 will detect and map the spectral fingerprints, or wavelengths of reflected sunlight, of minerals and the different forms of water on the lunar surface. The LTM instrument will map the minerals and thermal properties of the same landscape. Together they will create a picture of the abundance, location, and form of water while also tracking how its distribution changes over time and temperature.

3. Lunar Trailblazer will take a long and winding road to the Moon.

Weighing only 440 pounds (200 kilograms) and measuring 11.5 feet (3.5 meters) wide with its solar panels fully deployed, Lunar Trailblazer is about the size of a dishwasher and relies on a relatively small propulsion system. To make the spacecraft’s four-to-seven-month trip to the Moon (depending on the launch date) as efficient as possible, the mission’s design and navigation team has planned a looping trajectory that will use the gravity of the Sun, Earth, and Moon to guide Lunar Trailblazer to its final science orbit — a technique called low-energy transfer.

4. The spacecraft will peer into the darkest parts of the Moon’s South Pole.

Lunar Trailblazer’s science orbit positions it to peer into the craters at the Moon’s South Pole using the HVM3 instrument. What makes these craters so intriguing is that they harbor cold traps that may not have seen direct sunlight for billions of years, which means they’re a potential hideout for frozen water. The HVM3 spectrometer is designed to use faint reflected light from the walls of craters to see the floor of even permanently shadowed regions. If Lunar Trailblazer finds significant quantities of ice at the base of the craters, those locations could be pinpointed as a resource for future lunar explorers.

5. Lunar Trailblazer is a high-risk, low-cost mission.

Lunar Trailblazer was a 2019 selection of NASA’s SIMPLEx (Small Innovative Missions for Planetary Exploration), which provides opportunities for low-cost science spacecraft to ride-share with selected primary missions. To maintain a lower overall cost, SIMPLEx missions have a higher risk posture and lighter requirements for oversight and management. This higher risk acceptance allows NASA to enable science missions that could not otherwise be done.

6. Future missions will benefit from Lunar Trailblazer’s data.

Mapping the Moon’s water supports future human and robotic lunar missions. With knowledge from Lunar Trailblazer of where water is located, astronauts could process lunar ice to create water for human use, breathable oxygen, or fuel. And they could conduct science by sampling the ice for later study to determine the water’s origins.

TOP IMAGE: Sunlight gleams off NASA’s Lunar Trailblazer as the dishwasher-size spacecraft orbits the Moon in this artist’s concept. The mission will discover where the Moon’s water is, what form it is in, and how it changes over time, producing the best-yet maps... Credit: Lockheed Martin Space

LOWER IMAGE: Fueled and attached to an adaptor used for secondary payloads, NASA’s Lunar Trailblazer is seen at SpaceX’s payload processing facility within NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida in early February 2025. The small satellite is riding along on Intuit... Credit: SpaceX

[stephen-barry]

Elon Musk, the DOGE chief, is expected to turn his profit-driven sights on the FAA’s little-known commercial spaceflight office (AST), which fined and grounded Musk's SpaceX.

When SpaceX’s Starship exploded in January, raining debris over the Caribbean, the Federal Aviation Administration temporarily grounded the rocket program and ordered an investigation. The move was the latest in a series of actions taken by the agency against the world’s leading commercial space company.

“Safety drives everything we do at the FAA,” the agency’s chief counsel said in September, after proposing $633,000 in fines for alleged violations related to two previous launches. “Failure of a company to comply with the safety requirements will result in consequences.”

SpaceX CEO Elon Musk’s response was swift and caustic. He accused the agency of engaging in “lawfare” and threatened to sue it for “regulatory overreach.”

Today, Musk is in a unique position to act as the proverbial fox in charge of the chickenhouse. As one of President Trump’s closest advisers and head of the newly dreamed up (NOT congressionally created) "Department of Government Efficiency", he’s presiding over the Trump regime's effort to allegedly cut costs and of course slash profit limiting regulation.

While it’s unclear what changes Musk’s wrecking crew of young felons has in store for the FAA, current and former employees are bracing for Musk to focus on the little-known part of the agency that regulates his rocket company: the Office of Commercial Space Transportation, known as AST. “People are nervous,” said a former employee who did not want to be identified talking about Musk.

For each launch, AST’s staff calculate the risk that “uninvolved” members of the public, or their property, will be harmed. They also consider whether the launch will cause environmental damage or interfere with other airspace activities, such as commercial flight, as well as make sure a rocket’s payload received the proper approvals. The office licenses space vehicle reentries, too, though, as yet, there are far fewer of them.

Last month, when Starship blew up shortly after liftoff, dozens of airplanes scrambled to avoid falling debris. Residents of the Caribbean islands of Turks and Caicos reported finding pieces of the craft on beaches and roads, and the FAA said a car sustained minor damage. Musk, however, downplayed the explosion as “barely a bump in the road.”

Moriba Jah, a professor of aerospace engineering at the University of Texas, said that Musk’s response was “recklessness, at a minimum,” given that people were alarmed by the falling rocket debris, which streaked fire and smoke across the sky before landing on and around the islands.

“That he now gets to provide government oversight over the things that he is trying to get permission to do is one of the most significant conflicts of interest I’ve seen in my career, and it’s inexplicable to me."

The White House did not answer questions from ProPublica