Hacker News Reader

Tim Dodd just released an excellent (and long) video comparing the costs of SLS with Falcon Heavy and (eventually, maybe) Starship. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KA69Oh3_obY&feature=youtu.be

SLS will cost upwards of a billion per launch. Compare that to $90 million for a reusable Falcon Heavy launch or ~$150 million for a disposable one.

View on HN

Kind of off-topic, but trying to watch that video brought this to mind: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22792243

Tim can repeat himself often, but he's not bad at what he does. His content is admittedly designed for children.

That’s a bit harsh, at the beginning of his videos he does a kind of outline of the content. But the content is there ! Kind of understand why you say that when, at one point, he mentions a future video.

And SLS Orion Launch:

4x RS-25: 520M

2x SRB: 200M

ICPS: 150M (EUS will be more)

Core Stage: (not sure) 30M+ given how long they work on it

Orion Capsule: 900M

That is all without ground infrastructure or people working at NASA. Given that it will probably not launch more then once a year. 100s of M extra.

In comparison, a SpaceX Raptor internal cost is 1-2M, Merlin less then 1M. The sale price of the BO BE-4 is 8M.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com