Replying to @⁨sanitation@lemmy.today⁩

I thought SpaceX was at least on the right track with Starship, but then I read this article talking about how even one trip to the Moon could take up to 20 launches:

nextbigfuture.com/…/nasa-says-up-to-20-spacex-sta…

NASA Says Up to 20 SpaceX Starship Refueling Launches Per Moon MissionNextBigFuture.comNASA Says Up to 20 SpaceX Starship Refueling Launches Per Moon Mission | NextBigFuture.comA NASA official said Artemis will need 20 SpaceX Lunar Starship launches per moon landing. On Nov. 17, Lakiesha Hawkins, assistant deputy associate

Replying to @⁨melfie@lemmy.zip⁩

So if we assume they manage to build a fully rapidly reusable rocket and launch infrastructure (the latter of which is incredibly questionable), the only marginal cost increase is just labor to conduct the launches and consumables.

And the physics says more like 17 launches, but at the end of the day, that’s just how much it costs to send 200 tons to the moon, AND bring the rocket back. They’re not jettisoning stages or leaving the rocket behind in the moon like Apollo.

The numbers are mind boggling, and short of nuclear rockets and space elevators, there is literally no way to do this short of many, many, many tiny launches, and it’s way less risky to have those tiny launches refill a tanker in LEO than to send 20 launches to the moon independently. Plus there would be no way to send large pre assembled components like nuclear reactors and construction/manufacturing equipment. Everything would have to be manufactured and assembled on the moon.

Replying to @⁨CyberSeeker@discuss.tchncs.de⁩

So I’m not sure what the marginal cost per launch is. I remember reading that the propellant between Starship and Supeheavy is something like $100M per launch, which would put 20 launches at around $2B and would make the re-usability not actually a cost saver vs. an expendable rocket. However, I just read the article below that says the launch cost is more like $3-$5M, so I may have been completely off base in my original assumption.

spaceorbitals.com/…/starship-v3-cost-per-kg-2026/

spaceorbitals.comHow Cheap Is Starship V3 Really? A Plain-English Look at the 2026 $/kg-to-LEO Math | SpaceOrbitalsStarship V3 debuted Flight 12 in May 2026. We break down the new $/kg-to-LEO economics, what Raptor 3 reuse actually changes, and why every commercial space mat
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