Adeldor t1_is5mapl wrote
Reply to comment by a_swarm_of_nuns in Now that commercial space flight is in the works, if you had the money, would you go? by Ariolet
Propellant contributes very little to current launch expenses. Vehicle and infrastructure costs dwarf it. For example, it costs SpaceX less than $20 million to launch a Falcon 9, yet propellant is only ~$200,000 of that, or around 1%.
Via full reusability and simplified operation, SpaceX hopes with Starship to dramatically reduce expenses to the point where it'll cost only a few million to launch 100 t to LEO.
To illustrate, assume a full Starship will cost $10 million to launch (that's five times Musk's most quoted estimate, just to be conservative). Launching 200 kg then costs $20,000. Still high relative to air transport, but it's getting there.
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