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Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:
The head of Russia's space agency on Saturday accused Elon Musk's SpaceX of predatory pricing for space launches, which is pushing Russia to cut its own prices. "Instead of honest competition on the market for space launches, they are lobbying for sanctions against us and use price dumping with impunity," Roscosmos chief Dmitry Rogozin wrote on Twitter.
Rogozin, who is often outspoken on Twitter and previously engaged in online banter with Elon Musk, on Friday raised the issue during a meeting with President Vladimir Putin.
He said the Roscosmos space agency "is working to lower prices by more than 30 percent on launch services to increase our share on the international markets." "This is our answer to dumping by American companies financed by the US budget," he said. The market price of a SpaceX launch is $60 million, but NASA pays up to four times that amount, he said.
Musk responded to the criticism Saturday by saying on Twitter: "SpaceX rockets are 80% reusable, theirs are 0%. This is the actual problem."
(Score: 5, Informative) by DannyB on Monday April 13 2020, @04:46PM
Technically, the Shuttle was reusable. Bit was a Phyrric victory. [wikipedia.org] (not to be confused with a phallic victory)
But reusable at what cost?
When Regan approved the replacement shuttle, the cost, back then, was $3 Billion. (That's about 3 nuclear subs.)
In recent times, a shuttle launch cost nearly a billion dollars. (sorry, no source other than my flailing memory with one bearing going out)
So while it is reusable, it is not economical. When a handfull of launches, maybe five, pays for the entire cost of the vehicle, is that economical?
But then we have SLS. It's purpose is to use up spare old shuttle parts. So it puts an expensive re-usable Shuttle engine on an expendable vehicle. Development costs have spiraled out of control. Each launch estimated to cost at least a billion. Wow.
SpaceX must be a huge embarrassment to a lot of people, including Putin.
The lower I set my standards the more accomplishments I have.