With the grasshopper technology the cost of a flight to orbit basically is the cost of rocket fuel, which is 1% of the total cost of the flights currently going into orbit. That is 100x cost savings.
If he pulls off grasshopper, expect every space program with an R/D budget to start a crash program to develop it. It is a complete game changer in both technology and cost. Rockets would get far more expensive and sophisticated since being truly reusable the capital cost can amortized over the multiple launches.
Of course no one has managed to develop a reusable launch system system so far so it is likely far more difficult than at appears at face value. The successful development of grasshopper is a low probability, high pay off event.
They are mostly fuel and wages of (frequently unionized) employees. For example, numbers for Southwest for the last quarter, of the total $4.2 bil expense:
Fuel: $1.5 bil
Salaries: $1.2 bil
Depreciation + Maintenance: $0.5 bil (basically all airplane related expenses)
So, maintenance expenses are only 12% of the total, while fuel is 35% and salaries 28%.
If the cost of fuel in orbit launches was indeed just 1% of the total cost, then compared to air travel those launches are very inefficient and there may be a huge room for improvement.
>> With the grasshopper technology the cost of a flight to orbit basically is the cost of rocket fuel...
>Even my car costs significantly more than just the fuel.
yes, but the cost of using your car for a drive from home to work is basically the cost of car fuel. As opposed to the cost of a full car + fuel because you decide to blow your car up once you get to destination, like we now do for rockets.
> yes, but the cost of using your car for a drive from home to work is basically the cost of car fuel.
No, it isn't. Insurance, license, registration, annual inspection, tires, wear-and-tear, maintenance, depreciation... and imagine if I needed a fully-staffed mission control at my house every time I took a ride.
Reusable rockets may reduce costs, but chances are it won't be by 100x.
If we assume two things: the current cost of fuel is 1% of the total launch cost, and launching a reusable rocket is similar to operating an aircraft, then we can use numbers from commercial aviation:
- the cost of fuel is 35% of the total cost.
The total cost of the rocket launch then will be 3 times its fuel cost, or 3% of the _current_ expense. That's savings of 97%. Even if the analogy is not perfect and we make numerous allowances, the potential for cost-cutting by 80-90% is not inconceivable.
Again, this is based on the two assumptions above. If they are totally off, so are these calculations.
I would assume that air traffic control is similar to ground control for the purposes of this analogy. Does that 35% number take into account the costs of air traffic control? I'm assuming that the airport (and not the airlines) covers those costs.
As far as I know air traffic control is part of FAA and it's covered by taxpayers (or perhaps, it's an extra charge in the ticket?). In any case, ground control will probably be a lot less expensive since it's just one team in one location, while air traffic control covers the entire country.
