Starship & Reusable Rockets
The plummeting cost of orbit.
Explore this event on the interactive timeline →SpaceX's successful development of the massive, fully reusable Starship vehicle completely upended the economics of space travel, making the colonization of the solar system economically viable.
Key Numbers
- Cost to LEO (Space Shuttle)
- $54,000 / kg
- Cost to LEO (Starship Target)
- < $100 / kg
Verified Facts
- During the Space Shuttle era, it cost roughly $54,000 per kilogram to launch mass into Low Earth Orbit. By 2025, reusable Falcon 9 rockets had dropped that to roughly $2,600/kg.
- Starship, being fully and rapidly reusable, is projected to drop the cost of orbit to less than $100/kg—an exponential cost collapse rivaling Moore's Law.
- In late 2024, SpaceX successfully caught a returning 232-foot-tall Super Heavy booster stage mid-air using massive mechanical arms (the "Chopsticks") on the launch tower.