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The Cost of Space Flight Before and After SpaceX

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The Cost of Space Flight Before and After SpaceX

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The Cost of Space Flight Before and After SpaceX

On December 21, 2021, SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket launched a cargo capsule to deliver supplies and Christmas gifts to astronauts in the International Space Station.

Just eight minutes after liftoff, the rocket’s first stage returned to Earth, landing on one of SpaceX’s drone ships in the Atlantic Ocean. This marked the company’s 100th successful landing.

Like other companies such as Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin, and Ball Aerospace, SpaceX is designing and building innovative spacecraft that are speeding up space delivery by making it more routine and affordable. But how much does it cost to launch a cargo rocket into space, and how has this cost changed over the years?

In the graphic above we take a look at the cost per kilogram for space launches across the globe since 1960, based on data from the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

The Space Race

The 20th-century was marked by competition between two Cold War adversaries, the Soviet Union (USSR) and the United States, to achieve superior spaceflight capability.

The space race led to great technological advances, but these innovations came at a high cost. For instance, during the 1960s NASA spent $28 billion to land astronauts on the moon, a cost today equating to about $288 billion in inflation-adjusted dollars.

In the last two decades, space startup companies have demonstrated they can compete against heavyweight aerospace contractors as Boeing and Lockheed Martin. Today, a SpaceX rocket launching can be 97% cheaper than a Russian Soyuz ride cost in the ’60s.

The Cost of Space Flight Before and After SpaceX

The key to increasing cost efficiency?

SpaceX rocket boosters usually return to Earth in good enough condition that they’re able to be refurbished, which saves money and helps the company undercut competitors’ prices.

Space Tourism

Although competition has brought prices down for cargo flights, human space transportation is still pricey.

During the last 60 years, roughly 600 people have flown into space, and the vast majority of them have been government astronauts.

For a suborbital trip on Virgin Galactic’s SpaceShipTwo and Blue Origin’s New Shepard, seats typically cost $250,000 to $500,000. Flights beyond that to actual orbit—a much higher altitude—are far more expensive, fetching more than $50 million per seat.

The Future of Space Flight

In a SpaceX press briefing, SpaceX Director Benji Reed said, “We want to make life multi-planetary, and that means putting millions of people in space.”

This may still seem like a stretch for most people. But, given the decreasing cost of space flights over the last two decades, perhaps the sky won’t be the limit in the near future.

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Space

Visualizing All Attempted and Successful Moon Landings

Since the beginning of the space race, only four countries have successfully accomplished missions to the moon.

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All successful and attempted moon landings.

Visualizing All Attempted and Successful Moon Landings

Since before Ancient Greece and the first Chinese Dynasties, people have sought to understand and learn more about the moon.

Curiosity and centuries of study culminated in the first moon landing in the 1960s. But there have been many other attempted moon landings, both before and after.

This chart by Preyash Shah illustrates all the moon landings using NASA data since 1966 when Soviet lander Luna 9 touched down.

Race to the Moon

The 1960s and 1970s marked an era of intense competition between the U.S. and the Soviet Union as they raced to conquer the moon.

During the Cold War, space became a priority as each side sought to prove the superiority of its technology, its military firepower, and its political-economic system.

In 1961, President John F. Kennedy set a national goal to have a crewed lunar landing and return to Earth.

After several failed attempts from both sides, on July 20, 1969, the Apollo 11 mission was successful and astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin became the first humans to set foot on the moon.

MissionLaunch DateOperatorCountryMission TypeOutcome
Ranger 326-Jan-62NASA🇺🇸 U.S.LanderSpacecraft failure
Ranger 423-Apr-62NASA🇺🇸 U.S.LanderSpacecraft failure
Ranger 518-Oct-62NASA🇺🇸 U.S.LanderSpacecraft failure
Luna E-6 No.24-Jan-63 OKB-1☭ USSRLanderLaunch failure
Luna E-6 No.33-Feb-63 OKB-1☭ USSRLanderLaunch failure
Luna 42-Apr-63 OKB-1☭ USSRLanderSpacecraft failure
Luna E-6 No.621-Mar-64 OKB-1☭ USSRLanderLaunch failure
Luna E-6 No.520-Apr-64 OKB-1☭ USSRLanderLaunch failure
Kosmos 6012-Mar-65 Lavochkin☭ USSRLanderLaunch failure
Luna E-6 No.810-Apr-65 Lavochkin☭ USSRLanderSpacecraft failure
Luna 59-May-65 Lavochkin☭ USSRLanderSpacecraft failure
Luna 68-Jun-65 Lavochkin☭ USSRLanderSpacecraft failure
Luna 74-Oct-65 Lavochkin☭ USSRLanderSpacecraft failure
Luna 83-Dec-65 Lavochkin☭ USSRLanderSpacecraft failure
Luna 931-Jan-66 Lavochkin☭ USSRLanderSuccessful
Surveyor 130-May-66 NASA🇺🇸 U.S.LanderSuccessful
Surveyor 220-Sep-66 NASA🇺🇸 U.S.LanderSpacecraft failure
Luna 1321-Dec-66 Lavochkin☭ USSRLanderSuccessful
Surveyor 317-Apr-67 NASA🇺🇸 U.S.LanderSuccessful
Surveyor 414-Jul-67 NASA🇺🇸 U.S.LanderSpacecraft failure
Surveyor 58-Sep-67 NASA🇺🇸 U.S.LanderSuccessful
Surveyor 67-Nov-67 NASA🇺🇸 U.S.LanderSuccessful
Surveyor 77-Jan-68 NASA🇺🇸 U.S.LanderSuccessful
Luna E-8 No.20119-Feb-69 Lavochkin☭ USSRLanderLaunch failure
Luna E-8-5 No.40214-Jun-69 Lavochkin☭ USSRLanderLaunch failure
Luna 1513-Jul-69 Lavochkin☭ USSRLanderSpacecraft failure
Apollo 1116-Jul-69NASA🇺🇸 U.S.Lander/
Launch Vehicle
Successful
Kosmos 30023-Sep-69 Lavochkin☭ USSRLanderLaunch failure
Kosmos 30522-Oct-69 Lavochkin☭ USSRLanderLaunch failure
Apollo 1214-Nov-69NASA🇺🇸 U.S.Lander/
Launch Vehicle
Successful
Luna E-8-5 No.4056-Feb-70 Lavochkin☭ USSRLanderLaunch failure
Apollo 1311-Apr-70NASA🇺🇸 U.S.Lander/
Launch Vehicle
Partial failure
Luna 1612-Sep-70 Lavochkin☭ USSRLanderSuccessful
Luna 1710-Nov-70 Lavochkin☭ USSRLanderSuccessful
Apollo 1431-Jan-71NASA🇺🇸 U.S.Lander/
Launch Vehicle
Successful
Apollo 1526-Jul-71NASA🇺🇸 U.S.Lander/
Launch Vehicle
Successful
Luna 182-Sep-71 Lavochkin☭ USSRLanderSpacecraft failure
Luna 2014-Feb-72 Lavochkin☭ USSRLanderSuccessful
Apollo 1616-Apr-72NASA🇺🇸 U.S.Lander/
Launch Vehicle
Successful
Apollo 177-Dec-72NASA🇺🇸 U.S.Lander/
Launch Vehicle
Successful
Luna 218-Jan-73 Lavochkin☭ USSRLanderSuccessful
Luna 2316-Oct-75 Lavochkin☭ USSRLanderPartial failure
Luna E-8-5M No.41216-Oct-75 Lavochkin☭ USSRLanderLaunch failure
Luna 249-Aug-76 Lavochkin☭ USSRLanderSuccessful
Chang'e 31-Dec-13 CNSA🇨🇳 ChinaLanderOperational
Chang'e 47-Dec-18 CNSA🇨🇳 ChinaLanderOperational
Beresheet22-Feb-19 SpaceIL🇮🇱 IsraelLanderSpacecraft failure
Chandrayaan-222-Jul-19ISRO🇮🇳 IndiaLanderSpacecraft Failure
Chang'e 523-Nov-20 CNSA🇨🇳 ChinaLanderSuccessful
Hakuto-R Mission 111-Dec-22 ispace🇯🇵 JapanLanderSpacecraft failure
Chandrayaan-314-Jul-23ISRO🇮🇳 IndiaLanderSuccessful
Luna 2510-Aug-23 Roscosmos🇷🇺 RussiaLanderSpacecraft failure

After the Apollo missions, the fervor of lunar exploration waned. From 1976 to 2013, no moon landing attempts occurred due to budget constraints, shifting priorities, and advances in robotic missions.

However, a new chapter in space exploration has unfolded in recent years, with emerging players entering the cosmic arena. With its Chang’e missions, China has made significant strides, landing rovers on the moon and exploring the far side of the moon.

India, too, has asserted its presence with the Chandrayaan missions. In 2023, the country became the 4th nation to reach the moon as an unmanned spacecraft landed near the lunar south pole, advancing the country’s space ambitions to learn more about the lunar ice, potentially one of the moon’s most valuable resources.

Exploring Lunar Water

Since the 1960s, even before the historic Apollo landing, scientists had theorized the potential existence of water on the moon.

In 2008, Brown University researchers employed advanced technology to reexamine lunar samples, discovering hydrogen within beads of volcanic glass. And in 2009, a NASA instrument aboard the India’s Chandrayaan-1 probe confirmed the presence of water on the moon’s surface.

Water is deemed crucial for future space exploration. Beyond serving as a potential source of drinking water for future moon explorations, ice deposits could play a pivotal role in cooling equipment. Lunar ice could also be broken down to produce hydrogen for fuel and oxygen for breathing, essential for supporting extended space missions.

With a reinvigorated interest in exploring the moon, manned moon landings are on the horizon once again. In April 2023, NASA conducted tests for the launch of Artemis I, the first American spacecraft to aim for the moon since 1972. The agency aims to send astronauts to the moon around 2025 and build a base camp on the lunar surface.

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