SpaceX's Falcon Heavy Is About To Launch A $5 Billion Spacecraft! 

You don't think SRB's can do it ??

@@ericstyles3724 it’s not a matter of capability. It’s a matter of choosing to spend billions more than is needed

What's the mission? What's the date? No nonsense

Yep. The nonsense is in the (mostly, not yours) anti-sls and anti-boeing comments that have become the norm for all space related channels.

NASA should stick to payloads only. It’s clear that the size of the government and the ability for contractors to charge an arm and a leg makes it pretty much impossible to design and build a vehicle for cheap. One company that has all the infrastructure to design almost everything needed for a vehicle is clearly the way to go in terms of cost. When you have a bunch of subcontractors the cost skyrockets and quality control becomes much more difficult and adds even more cost.

No one knew when SLS began under the Constellation Program, that SpaceX wouldn't be bankrupt before Artemis first mission flew. SpaceX EXISTS because DARPA. DOD and NASA after its ONE successful Falcon 1 launch.

Falcon heavy could not lift Orion to TLI, even when fully expended. Yes, there are very few missions that require SLS (especially outside of Artemis), but for those missions, there is no alternative. Also 20 is exaggerated, it's more like 14x

anything NASA and the government are involved in is just wasting tax payers money!!

Falcon heavy can't do what SLS can , that's why

Who lied to you and said a start ship stack only costed 100 million. Given they spend 2 billion per year and fly 2 per year that'd punch out to 1 billion per flight using the same method of working the price as people apply to SLS

@@mathewferstl7042 lucky that 100 million was quoted and not the 2 million elon advertised it at the start or the 10 million that would be the cost for the crewed version to mars with the 100K per ticket price...

@@mathewferstl7042 3 have launched this year, most of that money is R&D. If you think a full stack is 1 billion you clearly don't watch or pay attention to the program. its 100m including fuel per launch.

@@mathewferstl7042 I agree that a Starship / Super Heavy is probably more than 100 million, probably around $500 million if fully expended (not recoverable). Currently, the $billions SpaceX is spending on the Starship program isn't for the spacecraft, but R&D. We are only days (maybe hours) away from the 4th Starship launch. They are funding Starship with Starlink which currently costs about $30 million per launch which is mind boggling to think about. Just 14 years ago it would have cost more than $300 million to launch a 15 ton payload to orbit, now SpaceX can do it for $30 million. Once Starship / Super heavy get to the same level of re-usability as Falcon and I do believe they will, I wouldn't think it is a far stretch to say that a single launch would cost $100 million. We may be a few years away from this, but I do think it is possible and likely to happen as long as SpaceX can keep up their current progress.

@@mathewferstl7042 they flew 3 in 1 year and no the sls costs about $2.5 billion dollars to fly the starships costs about $100 million not including the current costs put in infrastructure because of the infrastructure built to mass manufacture the rocket. the savings you get from manufacturing at scale is what makes Starship cheap and it will get cheaper as they begin manufacturing inside the starship factory. sls will not be mass manufactured and so does not benefit from it. but if we were to compare the whole program as you would insist, then the cost of the sls program is about $23.8 billion and the orion $20.4 billion. these are made from or are decades old tech that they reuse. musk says the starship program cost will be in between 5 to 10 billion dollars. infrastructure will probably be another 10 billion dollars. there is a lot of money from the taxpayers in spacex but it mostly comes from customer payloads and starlink. sls is all taxpayer.

It was redundant before it even took it's first flight.

The Boeing execs are holding a lot representatives constituents hostage so to speak, “we set the price and you pay it or we close your little towns local factory”

Boeing had a fixed price contract.

Full payment doesn't happen until six ships dock and return from iss.

Maybe before you blame NASA to much you might want to learn how the funding actually works.

Boeing lobbies congress to ensure they get their contracts and are often given them in spite of NASA recommendations. Congress loves it because of $’s and they essentially get to run a jobs program for their districts/states in all but name.

you’re insane to think nasa is only taking pictures of rocks

We drilled and tested rocks in the 70s with viking. Glad to hear China is catching up 50yrs later.

@@InvestmentJoy Why not the ice caps, we can see it, we know the water is subsurface, we know the surface is sterile from the sun and asteroid impact.

Would a solid third stage have caused vibration issues?

@@garreth629 Those big solid boosters rumble and vibrate. Smaller solids, less vibration. However, there may not be any available and to make one up might take expenses testing that NASA wouldn't wish to pay.

Probably just cheaper to pay for the expendable falcon than to design a kick stage or buy a kick stage by someone else

A solid fuel rocket may not be precise enough for interplanetary trajectories

@@shanent5793 Galileo, New Horizons, and Cassini: Are we a joke to you?

It wasn't a joke. It just took to long

They had to observe congressional mandates

Putting the whole Boeing board in prison for frauds would not be far fetched.

DEI ! Gotta feed the masses as well as the massa

The Europa Clipper is the largest planetary probe ever built by NASA. Add to that are 9 scientific instruments not to mention the high cost of shielding to protect the probe from the severe Jupiter radiation. Do yourself a favor and research the subject before you make an uninformed comment.

@@michaeldeierhoi4096 5 billion is excessive.

@@SuperEddietv High precision entirely custom equipment is not cheap to either design OR build.

@@SuperEddietv You don't sound like you have a clue how expensive it is to build deep space planetary probes. That's no surprise as many perhaps most people don't know either!!

It's even more of a joke when you consider the fact that much of the design for the fuel tank and the solid rocket boosters is just repurposed space shuttle Tech. Stuff that was originally designed in the 1970s

And your Doctorate in Aerospace Engineering, or Space Policy came from where? You got it online? That clicks.

Cost - plus contracts

Because of Congress, in order for NASA to get funding approval, there has to be a component made in every single state. That is why they cost so much and have so many issues. Space X is all completely in house which is why they have rapid turnaround times.

Can you imagine landing a small army of Tesla robots on Europa?

🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄. The JWST was 10 billion but then that wasn't a rocket, but a space telescope that is planned to last ten years or more. And the Europa Clipper isn't a rocket per se, but a planetary probe which is planned to make 35 orbits and fly bys of Europa over 3.5 years. So it may sound expensive, but this probe is designed to be protected from the harsh Jupiter radiation as study Europa with an array of 9 instruments.

lmao headassed take

We are all glad that you have nothing to do with planning planetary space probes. 😂

@@michaeldeierhoi4096 why thank you. It sometimes seems that some scientists have a hard time justifying incredibly expensive research just because they have a fascination with what they might discover.

And? Apples and oranges. Military spacecraft are stunningly complex. Makes the heavy look like a toy.

But it does the job

@@RS-ls7mm You have to be joking.

Cost - plus contracts vs commercial contracts Single use booster vs partially reusable

@@RS-ls7mmbeing overly complex and not reusable is not the flex you think it is. It is truly pathetic