There was a time when space exploration was primarily the domain of governments rather than private enterprises. Although corporations have been involved in space exploration since the initiation of the space age in the mid-50s, it wasn’t until 1982 that the first private rocket was successfully launched into space by Space Services Inc. Since then, the involvement of the private sector in space travel and exploration has increased significantly.
In the United States, the Commercial Space Launch Amendments Act, aimed at promoting the development of commercial human spaceflight, was enacted in 2004. As a 2005 article in the Journal of Space Law highlighted, before the act, human spaceflight was primarily conducted by government-sponsored astronauts using government-owned, funded, and operated spacecraft. However, following the passage of the act, things changed. In 2004, Scaled Composites, LLC launched and successfully returned the first privately built and operated manned rocket more than 100 kilometers (62 miles) above Earth’s surface. As article author Timothy Robert Hughes noted, “space travel may have entered a new era in which private entities, rather than national governments, regularly, safely and affordably transport people into space.”
Almost two decades later, Hughes’ predictions have proven accurate as private space exploration has become widespread. We’ve also seen major collaborations between the private and public sectors in that regard, such as Planet Labs’ satellites that provide high-resolution imagery of our planet and NASA’s Commercial Crew Program, which has seen the agency collaborate with SpaceX and Boeing to reduce the cost of transporting astronauts to the International Space Station. SpaceX’s reusable rocket technology has been a significant factor in this equation, and as anyone who’s been paying attention in recent years will know, the company has been working diligently on developing that technology with numerous test launches. However, as you might expect, those launches are not inexpensive—though they are significantly cheaper than the alternatives.
The cost of SpaceX launches is high, but not as high as others
According to NASA, in 2018 SpaceX advertised its Falcon 9 rocket cost $62 million to reach low earth orbit (the area of Earth’s atmosphere below 1,200 miles, where artificial satellites are typically sent). Falcon Heavy launches were more expensive, priced at $90 million, and a human-crewed Falcon 9 and Dragon capsule mission to the ISS was about $140 million. In 2022, however, SpaceX increased its prices for launches across the board. Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy launches both increased by 8%, raising the former to $67 million and the latter to $97 million. Elon Musk cited “significant recent inflation pressure in raw materials & logistics” as the reason for the price hike.
That might seem like a substantial amount of money, and there’s no doubt it is in the grand scheme of things. However, it’s also significantly cheaper than NASA’s launch attempts (which also involve using half a million gallons of water). According to the book “The Space Shuttle Decision,” the 1969 launch of Apollo 11 cost an estimated $185 million ($1.62 billion, adjusted for inflation). Furthermore, the agency’s space shuttle launches cost around $1.5 billion each to reach LEO. Put another way, it cost NASA $24,700/lb to put a crew into LEO whereas SpaceX does it for half the price at $10,500/lb.
With uncrewed missions, the difference is even more stark. NASA currently uses Atlas V rockets to send cargo into orbit, which cost around $2,600/lb to put something in LEO. Compare that to the Falcon Heavy, which can do it for $635/lb, making NASA four times more expensive than SpaceX. When you look at it that way, SpaceX’s launches are comparatively affordable, and it’s easy to see why the company has been so successful in landing government contracts.
