Introduction:
In order to understand how much will a ticket on SpaceX costs, we'll have to review how much a ticket on a plane costs. Let's use an example of two people traveling from Boston to Los Angeles. Both are flying First Class. The price of a plane ticket is as follows: airfare $300, miles 1.5 cents per mile (Easier to calculate), food and drink $200, in-air entertainment $50 onboard wifi $20.
I'll save you the time and trouble of searching for it yourself. The ticket cost $62 million (which isn't bad for a launch). It was purchased by none other than Richard Branson — founder of Virgin Galactic, who has been known to invest in Elon Musk's companies (Virgin Galactic and Tesla).
How much did a ticket on SpaceX cost?
The price of your ticket depends on the number of passengers traveling and the type of seat you want. The company charges passengers according to the amount of weight they need to lift during takeoff and landing, as well as their distance from the launch site (launchpad).
The company uses a "payload-to-orbit" pricing model that factors in the cost of fuel and oxidizer for each flight. Fuel costs $60 per pound and oxidizer costs $30 per pound. SpaceX charges customers based on the amount of weight they need to lift during takeoff and landing, plus an additional fee for any payload beyond 150 pounds.
The cost varies depending on what type of seat you choose. If you're willing to wait longer than two hours for your flight, then you can pay less than $200 per seat — thus making it cheaper than flying with other major commercial airlines like Delta or United Airlines.
SpaceX is a private spaceflight company, founded by Elon Musk in 2002. It has developed the Falcon 1 and Falcon 9 launch vehicles, as well as the Dragon spacecraft. The company has a backlog of over $10 billion in future launches and is also developing a Mars rocket and spacecraft, with plans to begin human missions to Mars as soon as 2024.
The company's first two commercial flights were on February 28, 2004, to deploy the SES-2 satellite and on October 7, 2006, to deploy the Intelsat VI F-1 satellite. In 2007 the company launched its first Falcon 9 launch vehicle for NASA's COTS program (Commercial Orbital Transportation Services). In 2008 it made history when it launched its 100th spacecraft from Florida's Cape Canaveral Air Force Station (CCAFS) Spaceport.
In 2010 SpaceX won a contract from NASA for 12 cargo resupply missions under NASA's Commercial Resupply Services (CRS) program. The CRS program represents an enormous increase in capability for SpaceX and other companies building commercial resupply services compared to what was available from NASA before this new program came into effect.
In May 2018, SpaceX's Falcon Heavy rocket launched a Tesla Roadster into space. The car was loaded with a mannequin named "Starman" meant to test out the company's self-driving technology.
The launch cost $90 million, according to Bloomberg. This price includes the cost of the rocket (about $60 million), as well as insurance and other expenses related to the launch.
Conclusion:
The cost of a ticket on SpaceX, especially as compared to other spaceflight companies, is still unknown. The fact that they're offering affordable tickets at all is incredible in itself, but the price will truly be seen as a game changer once they have established regular commercial travel and even tourism.
SpaceX has pushed the boundaries in the space industry and it doesn't look like they'll be slowing down anytime soon. As a corporation, SpaceX offers a degree of accessibility that other companies don't. They've lowered the cost of space by 60% or more for an individual launch so that people can see firsthand what space is really like.