Elon Musk, the founder of SpaceX, recently made very bold claims about its Starship rocket during the first-ever US Air Force Space Pitch Day. He said that his rocket ship would cost much less than NASA rockets for getting into the orbit.
While speaking at the two-day event that was aimed at providing an opportunity to startups and businesses to pitch their technology and products to a branch of the military, Elon Musk said that it would cost about $2 million for his company to send a rocket ship into the orbit.
While conducting a talk with Lt. Gen. John Thompson, commander of the Space and Missile Systems Center, Elon Musk said, ‘If you consider operational costs, maybe it’ll be like $2 million. This is much less than even a tiny rocket. So, it’s something that needs to be made.’ SpaceX has ambitions of sending its rocket ship to space while carrying 100 persons – this also aligns with the goal of the company to colonize Mars.
If Musk’s claims are true, then the SpaceX’s Starship rocket will cost merely a fraction of the $152 million that NASA spends for getting a rocket up in orbit. Speaking more accurately, it would cost 1.3% of what NASA pays to get SpaceX rocket into orbit. Back in October, SpaceX and NASA announced that SpaceX will be launching astronauts with its Crew Dragon spacecraft into space as early as the beginning of the next year and that when it becomes operations, it will serve as the main transportation for astronauts to the International Space Station. This would mark the very first time that American astronauts would visit ISS since 2011.
The latest claims by Elon Musk have arrived at a time when SpaceX is making good progress on its initiatives. The company is all set to carry out the launch of its second set of Starlink Internet satellites while reusing a payload fairing on the rocket, thus making history.
