Why can American innovation crush China?

This article is an e-mail entitled "Why the US Can Beat China: the facts about SpaceX Costs" published on May 4, 2019 by the founder and CEO of Space Technology Discovery, Alan Musk. It announced the actual launch cost and price of SpaceX, and also outlined why he believes that US innovation can defeat countries like China in the space field – even though China is the fastest growing economy in the world and its labor costs are low. In the United States.

Whenever someone proposes to do something that has never been done before, there will always be people who question it. So, when I created SpaceX, it was not surprising that some people said that we would not succeed.

But now, even if we have successfully developed the Falcon 1, Falcon 9 and "Dragon" spacecraft, there are still people who have misrepresented and questioned the actual launch cost and price of SpaceX.

Last month, a Chinese government official noticed that SpaceX's current launch price is the most advantageous in the world, and they think they can't beat the price. This is a clear example of American innovation over foreign cheap labor.

I admit that our price breaks the historical cost model led by the government, but these prices are not arbitrarily formulated, not to seize the dominant share of the market, nor to “use” the market with strong demand first, and then price.

These prices are based on known cost and performance records that reflect the potential of the US commercial aerospace industry.

Here are some facts:

The standard launch cost of the Falcon 9 rocket is $54 million. Only one company in the world will post this information publicly on the website.

We have entered into many legally binding contracts with government and commercial customers at this price. Due to the high degree of vertical integration of SpaceX, we understand and control most of our costs.

Because of this, I am very convinced that as time goes by, our performance will get better and better, and the price will be lower and lower. This is the law of development of all science and technology categories.

NASA's mission to launch the "Dragon" cargo spacecraft to the International Space Station, with an average single-cost of $133 million, is equivalent to today's $115 million.

We signed a stable fixed price contract with NASA, including 12 cargo launch missions. This price includes the cost of launching the Falcon 9 and the Dragon, all operations, maintenance and management, and all the work required to interface with the space station.

If there is an overrun, then SpaceX will bear all of it.

From the company's establishment in 2002 to the fiscal year 2010, the company's total expenditure was less than $800 million, including the full development cost of Falcon 1, Falcon 9, and the "Dragon" spacecraft.

Of this $800 million, we include the cost of building our launch sites in Vandenberg, Cape Canaveral and Kwajalein Atoll, as well as the cost of building production facilities that support Falcon 9 and Dragon each year. The spacecraft completed up to 12 missions.

This total includes the cost of five launches of Falcon 1 , the cost of two launches of Falcon 9, and the cost of one launch and return of the Dragon.

The Falcon 9 carrier rocket was launched from a white paper to the first time. It took four years and its development cost was only slightly more than $300 million. The Falcon 9 is an EELV-class rocket that can generate approximately 1 million pounds of thrust and can carry more payload into the orbit than the Delta-4 medium-sized rocket.

The "Dragon" spacecraft took only four years from a blank paper to the first demonstration flight, and the development cost was about $300 million.

Last year, in cooperation with NASA, SpaceX became the first private company to successfully launch and recycle spacecraft. The spacecraft and the Falcon 9 carrier rocket were designed, manufactured and successfully launched by Americans in the United States.

The Falcon 9/Dragon system adds launch escape systems, seats and upgraded life support systems that can bring seven astronauts into orbit, more than double the load of the Russian Union, and average The transportation cost of a seat is only one-third of the latter.

Since 2007, SpaceX has achieved profitability for successive years. The large increase in the number of employees, investment in major infrastructure and operations did not hinder the company's profitability. There are more than 40 missions on our list, representing more than $3 billion in revenue.

These are all objective facts and have been verified by external auditors. In addition, SpaceX intends to achieve greater price cuts over the long term, at a time when the fully reusable carrier is successfully developed.

Fully reusable carriers are a long-term goal of the aerospace industry. Before we achieve this goal, we will not be satisfied with the progress that has been made.

For more than 30 years, the United States began to regain its international market share in the commercial satellite launch field for the first time last year. This major counter-forwarding stems from NASA's small investment in SpaceX in 2006 as part of the commercial rail transportation service program.

COTS is a unique public-private partnership that has proven that under the right conditions, a fully encouraged contractor – even 100% of local contractors – can be fixed at a fixed price in a relatively short period of time. In the case of the development of extremely complex systems, and the cost is significantly lower than the historical industry standards.

China is the fastest growing economy in the world. But the US free enterprise system allows any technology-savvy company to compete, and it is this that will ensure that the United States remains the world's greatest innovation power.