Historic concepts Archives - Opening the High Frontier

Why do Rockets Cost so Much?

In the late 1960s and early 1970s, America used the Saturn V rocket to go to the Moon. The first stage of that rocket had an empty weight of 130,000 kilograms and carried 2,160,000 kilograms of propellant. It was used only once and then thrown away.

The second stage of the Saturn V had an empty weight of 40,100 kilograms and carried 456,100 kilograms of propellant. Like the first stage, this stage was used only once and thrown away.

The third stage of the Saturn V had an empty weight of 13,300 kilograms and carried 106,600 kilograms of propellant. This stage was also used once and thrown away.

The total empty weight of those three stages was 183,400 kilograms.

By comparison, a Boeing 747 has an empty weight of 183,000 kilograms. The 747 can fly 15 hours per day, 11 months per year, and has a useful life of 20 years. It also carries three hundred plus passengers per flight.

Each Saturn V made only one flight and carried only three passengers.

This is why spaceflight that is based on using expendable rockets costs so much.

This is also why SpaceX and Blue Origin are working so hard to develop reusable rockets.

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In the Beginning . . . .

In 1903 the Wright brothers made the first controlled sustained flight in a powered airplane. It was the beginning of aerospace.

In 1919 airplanes began crossing the North Atlantic.

In 1933 Boeing and Douglas introduced the first modern airliners.

It only took 30 years.

The first rocket to exceed 100 kilometers altitude was the German V-2 in 1944.

The first satellite to orbit the Earth was launched in 1957, and shortly thereafter the first manned spacecraft was launched in 1961.

Eight years after that, in 1969, people walked on the surface of the Moon.

It only took 25 years.

The last manned expedition to the Moon occurred in 1972. The primary reason for stopping was cost and the lack of a realistic vision for how to make it affordable.

It has now been 44 years since people walked on the Moon and we have yet to come up with a workable plan for how to make spaceflight affordable to everyone.

That is what this website is about, a realistic vision that will make spaceflight affordable to everyone, using existing technology and known concepts that can be built and operated for an affordable price. It’s about “Opening the High Frontier“.

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