Space X 2nd stage recovery

"JF Mezei" wrote in message ...

On 2018-04-25 07:27, Jeff Findley wrote:

This makes no sense to me. ISS is the reason Dragon 2 and Starliner
were both built and will be flying within a year two with crew. Not
extending ISS beyond 2025 spells uncertainty for both Dragon 2 and
Starliner.

I was refering to any new developments. Dragon and Starliner's
development costs are being paid by NASA and the flights to ISS till
2025. After that, those vehicles remain "available" if needed, but
there wouldn't be any justification to build anything new since
restarting Dragon or Starliner production would cost much less than
designing from new.


Depends if they have a destination. A Bigelow Aerospace inflatable
space station could be a possible destination.

And who pays for it? Do you have long term supply of space tourists
willing to pay $20m each?

Not many, which is why as you develop the infrastructure, you drop the
price.

Dragon 2 will seat 7. I believe it only needs 1 trained pilot, but let's
assume 2.
That's still 5 paying seats.

Falcon 9 prices are falling and the price you see quoted is the one to
"make a profit"
SpaceX's internal prices are probably far lower.

So once you sell out the $20M seats, you start to sell $15M and then $10M.

I wouldn't be surprised if SpaceX could go even lower and still make a
profit.

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