> Well, they are shooting at a per Raptor cost of 100k long term 250k short term. Even assuming it is 4x as much now, that is about 3m for the engines.
That's some super optimistic numbers you chose there. There's no reason to believe that at this point in time a Raptor engine is only half as much as a less complex Merlin engine.
The loss of three engines per test is by far the most costly part of the operation. How much an engine costs right now, I don't know of course, but I'm very confident it's more than $2 million a piece.
And in the next tweet, he mentions his concern is about "secondary structure", which I take it to mean all the infrastructure that you would need to build and operate to make that rocket fly.
I do not believe the $2 million for Merlin. That number was der At peak production rate Merlin was less then $2 million, I think $1 million or maybe less be now. Or maybe a little more again since production rates have likely declined a bit.
Raptor already seems to have a production rate comparable to Merlin.
And btw, in my final estimate I gave a larger range. Even assuming 3 million per Raptor, that would fit within the 20 million I mentioned.
That's some super optimistic numbers you chose there. There's no reason to believe that at this point in time a Raptor engine is only half as much as a less complex Merlin engine.
The loss of three engines per test is by far the most costly part of the operation. How much an engine costs right now, I don't know of course, but I'm very confident it's more than $2 million a piece.