I’ve been reading you since the early days of TMQB and I had always assumed that was where I first encountered your writing. But now I realize I first read you in the 1987 Newsweek article. It was the primary research reference in the first term paper I ever wrote as a sophomore in HS. I remember it vividly, the Big Dumb Booster and the pic of the various rockets side by side. Just didn’t realize how early your writing had impacted me. I don’t always agree with your writing on culture and society but I do still appreciate your perspectives. But I always love your takes on science. Thanks for all you do. Was glad to find you on Substack as I had lost track of your writing for several years other than your books.
What a treasure this is week after week (even without football). I have no real interest in rockets etc, and found this week's edition captivating. Please keep up the excellent work--its so hard to find this sort of thing elsewhere.
This article really oversells Starship's "simplicity" and cost. Starship does use common materials when compared to NASA's SLS rocket, but the trade that Elon is making is simple materials and extremely complex operations, vs. NASA's exotic materials and simple operations. Starship (once fully operational) needs 16...ish (many believe over 20) consecutive launches in 2month timespan to bring a single toothpick to the moon. SLS can currently put 27 tons in lunar orbit which will grow to 46 in it's block 2 configuration. There is nothing "simple" about the overall Starship mission. It merely delays the complex portion of it's design to ops. That means we are in the "easy" phase of Starship's development right now (manufacturing using simple materials), they haven't tackled the hard parts yet (refueling in space, restarting full flow engines in space, catching the booster, rapid reuse of it's booster, landing a hotel sized object reliably on the moon's uneven surface).
And as for cost...whew, what a tale this is. There are varying estimates for SLS's cost, but for simplicity let's use your numbers. 20B dev cost plus 2.5B per launch. That "per launch" cost is based on normal development issues and first time through manufacturing issues. Most sources that I've seen expect this number to fall to 1.5B per launch once processes are streamlined and the launch rate creeps up. (Every aerospace program's biggest cost is people, so simply increasing launch rate will lower per-launch costs even with a rocket that uses exotic materials such as SLS). Starship numbers are hard to find given that SpaceX isn't a publicly traded company. Mid range estimates for Starship costs currently put it at 100M per launch, and 5B - 10B total development costs. (Realize the total cost is much much greater than the value of the HLS contract, and there are some reports that the per launch cost is much higher). So if we compare apples to apples, and use early per-flight costs for both Starship and SLS, Starship easily beats SLS, 100M vs. 2.5B...However, per-flight cost is irrelevant. What you want to compare is "per-mission" costs. How much does it cost SLS to get to the moon, vs. how much does it cost Starship to get to the moon. Well, we have no idea how much it will cost Starship to get to the moon, because it hasn't done it, and we don't even know how many launches it will take. But let's use the best public estimate out there (16-ish launches). 16 x 100 mil = 1.6B per Artemis moon mission for Starship...Compared to 2.5B for SLS. I'm not saying that 900M is negligible...But when you consider that SLS launch prices have nowhere to go but down, now that manufacturing is getting figured out, and that we may not have seen the ceiling for how many launches it will take Starship to actually get to the moon...These prices may end up being more similar than anyone wants to admit.
SpaceX has done some amazing things in rocketry. No doubt. But we don't need to inflate those accomplishments by comparing bogus numbers to SLS. Compare apples to apples, per-mission costs for Starship getting to the moon to per-mission costs for SLS getting to the moon. Compare total Starship development costs to total SLS development costs instead of Starship contracts to SLS development costs (which completely ignores the SpaceX funding spend on Starship including venture capital). And compare current flight costs to current flight costs, instead of "projected" per-flight Starship costs to SLS's first flight cost.
So very interesting - including the Newsweek cover story.
Just a mere sentence such as "When costs are covered by taxpayers, not only is there no market discipline, federal agencies have an incentive to run up the bill'' carries on the best traditions of C Peters and The Washington Monthly.
Back in the day, it was A. Ernest Fitzgerald and the C5A Galaxy. Imagine, actually trying to find out how much a thing costs; and casting a cold eye on murky expenses.
Well, if you’re talking about best space exploration bang for the buck, unmanned craft absolutely crush it. Why send humans to Mars sometime in the future when you can send robots today?
The sane-and-simple*r* approach is a proven track-winner in a variety of fields. The F-16 is THE classic story analogous to SpaceX (f Elon, he's an investor - not a technological innovator). Even in my work as a software engineer, esoteric, cutting edge is so brutally fragile, hard to maintain, and hard to scale. Out code might be laughably simple*r* but the output and maintenance is high and tmakes for easier training.
Thank you for a great article, Mr. Easterbrook. I've been a reader for years, and I always enjoy your pieces in which you explain to people the true motives and mechanisms behind widely-known but poorly understood agencies (like NASA). Well done.
Another aerospace analyst, John Pike, once said Elon Musk and SpaceX suffered from "random success." Pike's point was that SpaceX needed to blow up stuff to determine breaking points and/or safety margins for human spaceflight. Musk, and I would add, the person running SpaceX daily operations, Gwynn Shotwell, have embraced this approach. Pike made another point: What happens when SpaceX kills someone? I fear complacency is creeping into their operations, and as all pilots know, complacency kills. Nineteen years between the Apollo 1 fire and Challenger; 19 years between Challenger and Columbia. Guess what? It's about 19 years since the shuttle Columbia disaster. When, not if, there's an accident, will the SpaceX business model survive? That said, I'd sooner ride the Starship than the Senate Launch System..... Greg, any way you could post the full Newsweek article on Substack?
Billons of dollars! Trillions of dollars! And all for what? I find it deplorable that with so many starving in the world, so many without clean water, health care, education, that governments will spend so much for so little societal gain. Never mind saving the world from global warming. What has happened to us? Governments should be there to make sure their people are in the best possible positions to live a decent life, without fear and with basic needs as a right. All this talk of a base on the moon, a settlement on Mars, in my opinion is just ridiculous. Sure, with cost no object, it would be cool to roam around on the Red Planet, pick up some samples, maybe even find a fossil or two to show that life once existed there. And then the big so what. Other than stirring more controversy between science and religion, where is the gain? I'm not suggesting for a minute that education and knowledge should be put on the back burner, but I am saying that we could do a lot more learn'n if people on earth had enough food, their health, and could see value right in front of them instead of spending on starry space, backed by starry eyed and greedy politicians and multibillionaires.
I’ve been reading you since the early days of TMQB and I had always assumed that was where I first encountered your writing. But now I realize I first read you in the 1987 Newsweek article. It was the primary research reference in the first term paper I ever wrote as a sophomore in HS. I remember it vividly, the Big Dumb Booster and the pic of the various rockets side by side. Just didn’t realize how early your writing had impacted me. I don’t always agree with your writing on culture and society but I do still appreciate your perspectives. But I always love your takes on science. Thanks for all you do. Was glad to find you on Substack as I had lost track of your writing for several years other than your books.
thanks for the kind words!
What a treasure this is week after week (even without football). I have no real interest in rockets etc, and found this week's edition captivating. Please keep up the excellent work--its so hard to find this sort of thing elsewhere.
this is very kind of you to say. kind words help keep me going. and tell your friends!
This article really oversells Starship's "simplicity" and cost. Starship does use common materials when compared to NASA's SLS rocket, but the trade that Elon is making is simple materials and extremely complex operations, vs. NASA's exotic materials and simple operations. Starship (once fully operational) needs 16...ish (many believe over 20) consecutive launches in 2month timespan to bring a single toothpick to the moon. SLS can currently put 27 tons in lunar orbit which will grow to 46 in it's block 2 configuration. There is nothing "simple" about the overall Starship mission. It merely delays the complex portion of it's design to ops. That means we are in the "easy" phase of Starship's development right now (manufacturing using simple materials), they haven't tackled the hard parts yet (refueling in space, restarting full flow engines in space, catching the booster, rapid reuse of it's booster, landing a hotel sized object reliably on the moon's uneven surface).
And as for cost...whew, what a tale this is. There are varying estimates for SLS's cost, but for simplicity let's use your numbers. 20B dev cost plus 2.5B per launch. That "per launch" cost is based on normal development issues and first time through manufacturing issues. Most sources that I've seen expect this number to fall to 1.5B per launch once processes are streamlined and the launch rate creeps up. (Every aerospace program's biggest cost is people, so simply increasing launch rate will lower per-launch costs even with a rocket that uses exotic materials such as SLS). Starship numbers are hard to find given that SpaceX isn't a publicly traded company. Mid range estimates for Starship costs currently put it at 100M per launch, and 5B - 10B total development costs. (Realize the total cost is much much greater than the value of the HLS contract, and there are some reports that the per launch cost is much higher). So if we compare apples to apples, and use early per-flight costs for both Starship and SLS, Starship easily beats SLS, 100M vs. 2.5B...However, per-flight cost is irrelevant. What you want to compare is "per-mission" costs. How much does it cost SLS to get to the moon, vs. how much does it cost Starship to get to the moon. Well, we have no idea how much it will cost Starship to get to the moon, because it hasn't done it, and we don't even know how many launches it will take. But let's use the best public estimate out there (16-ish launches). 16 x 100 mil = 1.6B per Artemis moon mission for Starship...Compared to 2.5B for SLS. I'm not saying that 900M is negligible...But when you consider that SLS launch prices have nowhere to go but down, now that manufacturing is getting figured out, and that we may not have seen the ceiling for how many launches it will take Starship to actually get to the moon...These prices may end up being more similar than anyone wants to admit.
SpaceX has done some amazing things in rocketry. No doubt. But we don't need to inflate those accomplishments by comparing bogus numbers to SLS. Compare apples to apples, per-mission costs for Starship getting to the moon to per-mission costs for SLS getting to the moon. Compare total Starship development costs to total SLS development costs instead of Starship contracts to SLS development costs (which completely ignores the SpaceX funding spend on Starship including venture capital). And compare current flight costs to current flight costs, instead of "projected" per-flight Starship costs to SLS's first flight cost.
I hear you. with federal programs it's always hard to estimate the overhead, compared to private sector.
So very interesting - including the Newsweek cover story.
Just a mere sentence such as "When costs are covered by taxpayers, not only is there no market discipline, federal agencies have an incentive to run up the bill'' carries on the best traditions of C Peters and The Washington Monthly.
Back in the day, it was A. Ernest Fitzgerald and the C5A Galaxy. Imagine, actually trying to find out how much a thing costs; and casting a cold eye on murky expenses.
It is a great complement to be compared favorably to Charlie
Sorry for the nitpick, but your first image calls it a SpaceX Falcon. Technically, the photo is of the Falcon Heavy
Well, if you’re talking about best space exploration bang for the buck, unmanned craft absolutely crush it. Why send humans to Mars sometime in the future when you can send robots today?
The sane-and-simple*r* approach is a proven track-winner in a variety of fields. The F-16 is THE classic story analogous to SpaceX (f Elon, he's an investor - not a technological innovator). Even in my work as a software engineer, esoteric, cutting edge is so brutally fragile, hard to maintain, and hard to scale. Out code might be laughably simple*r* but the output and maintenance is high and tmakes for easier training.
Thank you for a great article, Mr. Easterbrook. I've been a reader for years, and I always enjoy your pieces in which you explain to people the true motives and mechanisms behind widely-known but poorly understood agencies (like NASA). Well done.
Thanks for the kind words
You think Elon Musk was *good* on Saturday Night Live?
how many billionaires can get laffs dressed as a Mario character? BTW wife & I just attended James Austin Johnson in concert and he was fabulous
Another aerospace analyst, John Pike, once said Elon Musk and SpaceX suffered from "random success." Pike's point was that SpaceX needed to blow up stuff to determine breaking points and/or safety margins for human spaceflight. Musk, and I would add, the person running SpaceX daily operations, Gwynn Shotwell, have embraced this approach. Pike made another point: What happens when SpaceX kills someone? I fear complacency is creeping into their operations, and as all pilots know, complacency kills. Nineteen years between the Apollo 1 fire and Challenger; 19 years between Challenger and Columbia. Guess what? It's about 19 years since the shuttle Columbia disaster. When, not if, there's an accident, will the SpaceX business model survive? That said, I'd sooner ride the Starship than the Senate Launch System..... Greg, any way you could post the full Newsweek article on Substack?
I have a hard copy of that issue. Not sure how to transfer to Substack. My 29 year old is coming home for Easter he will know!
Billons of dollars! Trillions of dollars! And all for what? I find it deplorable that with so many starving in the world, so many without clean water, health care, education, that governments will spend so much for so little societal gain. Never mind saving the world from global warming. What has happened to us? Governments should be there to make sure their people are in the best possible positions to live a decent life, without fear and with basic needs as a right. All this talk of a base on the moon, a settlement on Mars, in my opinion is just ridiculous. Sure, with cost no object, it would be cool to roam around on the Red Planet, pick up some samples, maybe even find a fossil or two to show that life once existed there. And then the big so what. Other than stirring more controversy between science and religion, where is the gain? I'm not suggesting for a minute that education and knowledge should be put on the back burner, but I am saying that we could do a lot more learn'n if people on earth had enough food, their health, and could see value right in front of them instead of spending on starry space, backed by starry eyed and greedy politicians and multibillionaires.