Similar to risk of failure per launch, cost to space varies a great deal depending on launch vehicle.

Rocket costs are, with a few exceptions, inversely proportional to rocket size: the larger the rocket, the lower the cost per pound. A few examples include the Pegasus (800lb payload at $15,000/lb), Titan III (32,000lb payload at $5,370/lb), and the Proton (44,000lb at $1,820/lb).⁶ All data is from 1997.

The space shuttle has a relatively high launch cost of $8,000/lb with a payload of 55,000lb.⁶ When the shuttle was designed, it was assumed that there would be many more launches per year than there actually are. This resulted in much higher costs than originally anticipated. Still, for science experiments or other payloads which must be returned to Earth, the shuttle is the best option.

Cost to geo-synchronous Earth (GEO) orbit is even higher than the numbers listed above for cost to low Earth orbit (LEO). The space shuttle costs $200,000/lb to launch payloads into GEO, while the Titan costs $60,000 to do the same.¹¹

Second Generation Launch Vehicles:

Again, specific second generation data is hard to find, but the benchmark to be attained is $1000/lb or less.⁹ It should be noted that this number is very near the theoretical limit attainable by conventional launch vehicles

Space Elevators:

The cost to space is where space elevators truly shine. Initial estimates place the initial price to GEO at $100/lb.¹² That is 2,000 times less than the space shuttle’s launch costs! In addition, the cost can potentially fall to under $10/lb after maintenance and operations are perfected.² The only drawback for the elevator is that it has a large ‘up front’ construction cost of $40 billion.¹ Still, this is less than the cost of 40 space shuttle payloads to LEO, and is also less than the cost of launching 200,000lb – just under 4 LEO space shuttle payloads – into GEO using the shuttle as the launch vehicle.

Summary:

Second generation systems are a marginal improvement over the lowest cost rockets to LEO. For missions which require payloads to be returned to Earth, they provide an order of magnitude improvement over current systems. Space Elevators cut costs by 2,000 to GEO and by at least 10 times to LEO.

Table 2: Cost Analysis Summary