Given some time, Musk could probably make it so a trip to the Moon costs $300 million, maybe less.
We've (they've) accomplished an extraordinary cost improvement.
It's still such a monumental task, because the laws of physics have not changed. Building a huge rocket, putting people in it, and firing it at the Moon, is not the hard part per se (not killing them in the process, and bringing them back safely, is). We could have done that all over again at any time if we desired to spend the money. The next level of difficulty, is turning it into a truly routine task, and building something on the Moon. That's a dramatic leap up from only exploring the surface of the Moon. We've avoided doing that, not because we can't, but because it's a cost benefit equation, and the benefit has not been considered worth doing at the cost, even as the cost gradually declined. Now that cost benefit equation has improved dramatically enough to favor it being worth doing.
Simply put, as a society we're not willing to spend $500 billion or $1 trillion to build a Moon base. But we might be willing to spend $50 or $100 billion over time to do it. We're not willing to spend $10 or $20 billion for a trip to the Moon, but we are probably willing to spend $300 million or even a billion.
That’s not quite a fair comparison. The $500m to $1bn was just for the heavy variant, it doesn’t include the cost of developing the F9 itself. Musk has previously estimated the cost of just developing the landing capability by itself at about $1bn. But still, yes it’s a lot less than Saturn V.
Don’t forget Merlin design is based on an engine developed during the Apollo program. The lunar descent engine.
There has to be some savings in that when Musk and Mueller developed the current engine. But that’s fine. I’m good with our tax money from prior programs helping future endeavors.
Falcon Heavy cost $500m-$1b to get right.
Given some time, Musk could probably make it so a trip to the Moon costs $300 million, maybe less.
We've (they've) accomplished an extraordinary cost improvement.
It's still such a monumental task, because the laws of physics have not changed. Building a huge rocket, putting people in it, and firing it at the Moon, is not the hard part per se (not killing them in the process, and bringing them back safely, is). We could have done that all over again at any time if we desired to spend the money. The next level of difficulty, is turning it into a truly routine task, and building something on the Moon. That's a dramatic leap up from only exploring the surface of the Moon. We've avoided doing that, not because we can't, but because it's a cost benefit equation, and the benefit has not been considered worth doing at the cost, even as the cost gradually declined. Now that cost benefit equation has improved dramatically enough to favor it being worth doing.
Simply put, as a society we're not willing to spend $500 billion or $1 trillion to build a Moon base. But we might be willing to spend $50 or $100 billion over time to do it. We're not willing to spend $10 or $20 billion for a trip to the Moon, but we are probably willing to spend $300 million or even a billion.