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see the graphics and chart at: https://www.visualcapitalist.com/the-cost-of-space-flight/

SPACE
The Cost of Space Flight Before and After SpaceX
Published 2 days ago on January 27, 2022
By Bruno Venditti

The Cost of Space Flight Before and After SpaceX

▼ Use This Visualization
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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