• Pennomi@lemmy.world
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    1 month ago

    If you think that Starship has the exact same issues that SLS has you’re truly stretching reality. A billion dollars and two years is a TINY cost overrun compared to what they are doing. I know it sounds like a lot but for comparison, SLS costs like $2.5 billion per launch, not including development costs.

    • WalnutLum@lemmy.ml
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      1 month ago

      For comparison SLS spent about 2 billion in taxpayer money per year in development costs, and in the 4 years since the development contract was awarded to spaceX, they’ve spent around 5 billion in taxpayer money in development costs. (~1.25 billion per year)

      For launch comparisons, the SLS can take a payload directly to the moon for 2.2 billion, while the proposed starship launch requires 10-12 refueling launches at ~1-2 million per launch (proposed, but falcon 9 heavy costs like 90 million per launch, so that puts it closer to 900 million-1.1 billion per combined launch)

      I don’t think it’s that much of a stretch in reality to question these costs.