NASA has previously given more than $1 billion to Aerojet to "restart" production of the space shuttle era engines and a contract for six new ones. So, according to the space agency, NASA has spent $3.5 billion for a total of 24 rocket engines. That comes to $146 million per engine.
The NASA news release says that Aerojet has "implemented a plan to reduce the cost of the engines by as much as 30 percent," noting the use of more advanced manufacturing techniques.
[...] NASA designed these brilliant engines in the 1970s for the space shuttle program, during which they each flew multiple launches. A total of 46 engines were built for the shuttle at an estimated cost of $40 million[*] per engine. But now these formerly reusable engines will be flown a single time on the SLS rocket and then dropped into the ocean.
There are four engines on a Space Launch System rocket. At this price, the engines for an SLS rocket, alone, will cost more than $580 million. This does not include the costs of fabricating the rocket's large core stage, towering solid-rocket boosters, an upper stage, or the costs of test, transportation, storage, and integration. With engine prices like these, it seems reasonable to assume that the cost of a single SLS launch will remain $2 billion into perpetuity.
[...] There are a lot of things one could buy in the aerospace industry for $146 million. One might, for example, buy at least six RD-180 engines from Russia. These engines have more than twice the thrust of a space shuttle main engine. Or, one might go to United Launch Alliance's Rocket Builder website and purchase two basic Atlas V rocket launches. You could buy three "flight-proven" Falcon 9 launches. One might even buy a Falcon Heavy launch, which has two-thirds the lift capacity of the Space Launch System at one-twentieth the price[...]
[...] SpaceX is building the Raptor rocket engine to power its Super Heavy rocket and Starship upper stage. The Raptor has slightly more power at sea level than the RS-25, and is designed for dozens of uses. According to SpaceX founder Elon Musk, it costs less than $1 million to build a Raptor engine. The company has already built a couple dozen of them on its own dime. So there's that.
[*] Not adjusted for inflation.
(Score: 2) by Immerman on Thursday May 07 2020, @01:39PM
Sure, it's the way SpaceX does things, and I'm a big fan of their trial-and-error approach - but it doesn't inspire confidence that they'll actually manage to get Starship fully operational on schedule. Not to the levels necessary to swing a political miracle. There's a lot of innovation in Starship, which also means there's a lot of potential for major setbacks due to unforseen problems. And as I think I alluded to above, there's a strong feeling that Musk engenders a cult of personality, and if anything happened to him his businesses could flounder. (Not unlike Apple, whose innovation mostly died with Jobs).
I think you're right that it's a matter of timing - when Starship flies, SLS will be in trouble. Successful reentry and orbital refueling would make it extremely difficult to continue to justify SLS. But for now they're both future aspirations in a neck-and-neck race to orbit - and SLS has immense political support for reasons that have nothing to do with reaching orbit.