Sending a kilogram to orbit cost roughly $55,000 in the Space Shuttle era. Reusable rockets have brought the theoretical cost down to a few thousand dollars today. If Starship eventually achieves rapid full reusability, some projections put the figure below $100/kg — potentially turning access to orbit from an extraordinary expense into something approaching ordinary transportation.

Sending a kilogram to orbit cost roughly $55,000 in the Space Shuttle era. Reusable rockets have brought the theoretical cost down to a few thousand dollars today. If Starship eventually achieves rapid full reusability, some projections put the figure below $100/kg — potentially turning access to orbit from an extraordinary expense into something approaching ordinary transportation.

I love a clean chart as much as anyone, and the history of launch cost seems to offer a beauty: about $55,000 to place a kilogram in low Earth orbit with the Space Shuttle, a few thousand dollars with modern commercial rockets, then perhaps less than $100 if Starship becomes rapidly and fully reusable. The direction is real. The neatness is not. Those three numbers come from different kinds of calculation. One is a fully burdened programme cost …