…didn’t run, so I’ll run it here.
In Monday’s Wall Street Journal, Andy Pasztor
Mr. Musk notes in an email:
“I definitely didn’t tell Pasztor that our LES would cost $1B. He is off by a factor of ten! All I told him is that there is no way it would cost us more than $1B to demonstrate crew transport. That includes development, testing and certification to the most stringent NASA standards of everything needed for a seven-crew vehicle. I’ve also said that our price per person would be $20M, assuming the seven-person configuration and minimum of four flights per year. This compares to $30B for Ares I/Orion and a per person cost of ~$250M.”
In a follow up, he noted that the billion (if it goes that high) will include two abort flight tests (one on the pad, one high altitude) and a demonstration flight to and from ISS. Sounds like a bargain to me.
The wonder of blogs is dis or mis-information does not have to remain uncorrected.
And if a story smells like bullshit it proabally is.
Mr. Musk, what is this electric jet of whence you speak? 😉
Wow, he’s stating the $20M/seat price again! After Shotwell’s testimony at the Commerce, Science, and Transportation Subcommittee back in March everyone has been quoting the seat price as $50M or whatever-the-Soyuz-is-we’ll-beat-it.
Trent,
When I stopped in at SpaceX last (about a month ago), they were also quoting the $20M/seat price goal. They could definitely charge more at first, especially if there is no competition (what you can charge and what you should charge can vary sometimes).
But yeah, people like Twittington who are taking Andy’s BS as some sort of revelation or moment of candor that should be taken seriously just crack me up. Even with Elon no bluntly saying that’s not what he told Andy, they’ll argue that he’s just covering stuff up. Because, when it supports their opinion, it’s impossible for journalists to make mistakes.
~Jon
Twittington
Heheh, Mark the Space Twit.
Slandering honest twits hardly seems to be productive behavior.
I am beginning to think the Blue Origin people have it right. Say nothing except when there is a simple fact to report. Do not use the press or any media form. It would seem to be the only way to avoid having to deal with endless mis-informed speculation.
Those of us in the industry certainly have better things to do with our time.
That includes development, testing and certification to the most stringent NASA standards of everything needed for a seven-crew vehicle.
“NASA standards” could be interpreted in so many ways.
So how much to just do it sensibly? That is, not to NASA standards?
Trent Waddington Said on June 10th, 2010 at 3:44 pm
“Wow, he’s stating the $20M/seat price again! After Shotwell’s testimony at the Commerce, Science, and Transportation Subcommittee back in March everyone has been quoting the seat price as $50M or whatever-the-Soyuz-is-we’ll-beat-it.”
Elon has never quoted anything but $20M/seat. Shotwell, to my knowledge, has not stated any firm price, especially in her March testimony.
If you can dig up something specific to refute that, be my guest. Otherwise, much to do about nothing…
SpaceX is getting $133M per flight for their cargo missions to the ISS.
Their crew dragon is basically identical to their cargo Dragon.
7 seats at $20M is $140M.
Yep. Elon’s price seems about right.
Don’t worry, if the price goes up at any time in the future, Elon can very convincingly blame it on excessive NASA bureaucratic demands. I doubt anybody would disbelieve him.
Rand I really enjoy reading your stuff. Thank you very much. I just wish people (or some other tag) could do more listening and less making things up.
Thanks.
Not sure I read this right over at Pop Mech.
“every launch will cost more”
The way I understand SpaceX pricing is that they have priced the vehicle without consideration to the “R” in “RLV”.
Am I mistaken??
Hopefully they aren’t going to use a real F9 for a pad abort test of the LES. I’d stick Dragon on a pole for that one.
Slandering honest twits hardly seems to be productive behavior.
What do you mean?
“”Slandering honest twits hardly seems to be productive behavior.
What do you mean?””
You don’t think calling Mark a twit is slandering twits?
I envision an asterick by the price of $20 million: “* price indicates projected crew arrival at the launchpad.”
Needs more salt and pepper. Perhaps a little garlic… oh, that’s a different thread!
Basically a good recounting. I’m looking forward to hear some of the telemetry details. The details about the rolls was interesting and good to hear they should be on top of it and have a simple fix.
“every launch will cost more”
Yes. Don’t confuse cost and price. If they don’t get reusability, they have less profit margin, and less ability to lower prices.
I wonder what angle he had in mis-reporting. Hopefully it was just soul-less journalistic desire to shock readers into giving him attention/publicity rather than anything more ominous.
Although I’ve always seen it as 7 seats @ $20m per seat I’m guessing Spacex would hold one back for their pilot. If not NASA would have to add in it’s own training costs (NASA internal cost) for a pilot which would easily double their cost for the whole mission.
And does it really matter if it ends up costing $30m?